Raptor “Rapes” Nagin Afterlife in Buddhist Art and Culture Arputharani Sengupta This is Lockdown 2020. Eagleman devours Nagin believed to be a cobra. “What was that?!” The 19th century Colonial archaeology changed the perspective on the history of art and culture of South Asia. The decipherment of new Aramaic derived Brahmi script and Greco-Buddhist art of the early Christian period was a breakthrough to new knowledge. But up till now, the transnational Mystery cult has withheld more than it has yielded. The divine maiden and her anthropomorphized Eagle consort appear in Gandhara at the peak of Antinous Cult, reflecting the homoerotic love of Ganymede and Zeus' Eagle. Vajrapani, the “bearer of the thunderbolt” and the female counterpart Vajrayogini evolve over a period of time. The alternate reality in occult Buddhist topics deals with morphology, allegory, cosmology, and psychology. The spiritual aspect of the earliest Buddhist mortuary cult is Cognitive, Allegoric, and Literary. Synchronnal and animistic graphic patterns recurring in therapeutic rituals in visual and performing arts span Sri Lanka, Romania, Russia, and Roman Britain. A female lifted by a humanized eagle labeled "Garuda and Nagin" in a group of sculptures localized in Gandhara is a paradoxical subculture in the burgeoning Buddhist cult. The ex-votos are from southern Afghanistan close to Tajikistan, and the Northwest Frontier Province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. The iconography of high frontal reliefs in schist ranging in height from 10–50 cm is simultaneously baffling and intriguing. The Garuda and Nagin group sculptures are datable to the Kushan period, but those embossed in precious metal typically from dispersed, hidden treasures are presumed to be Kushan-Sasanian. Alfred Foucher and V. A. Smith observed that the cosmopolitan Gandhara School is Provincial Roman.1 Hermann Goetz noticed that the Greco-Roman style of early Buddhist sculpture is due to the global cultural links between India and the West. Different versions of divine female abducted by ardent Eagleman with sharp beak and “greedy gentle claw” are known in different museum collections and some more pop-up in the antiquefinal art market. But the initial shock of an Eagleman “rape” a 2000-year-old maiden has not diminished.2 The earliest record of these frontal icons is a small stone badge and a group of 35–40 cm high stele from Rhode Tepe at Sanghao in the Mardan district of Pakistan. Alexander Cunningham (1814-1893) identified the lifting female figure as Maha Maya; after giving rebirth to Buddha, the mother goddess proceeded to heaven to be "born again" in the realm of the thirtythree gods (Trayastrimsa).3 In 1893 Grunwedel’s overwhelming authority on the subject was 1 V. A. Smith, A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon (Oxford, 1911) p.119. A. K. Coomaraswamy, The Rape of a Nagi, In: Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization by Heinrich Zimmer, (ed.) Joseph Campbell (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946) pp.38,39, nos.209,210. 3 Four sculpture pieces from Rhode Tope, Sanghao, Peshawar District: Garuda and Nagini, Photo M. Serrot, 1883, British Library Online Galley, 2009. 2 accepted by Foucher and others. He describes the Sanghao stele as coarse, and adds: “from the back of the neck on the best-preserved relief rises a long snake, is borne into the air by the great eagle. The features of the female figure…are distorted with pain, the eagle’s beak tears at the serpent.”4 In reality, the alleged brutal rape is fake; the languorous female willingly yields to the Eagleman's embrace (0.1). Her hieratic "hand on hip" pose is that of a courtesan-priestess- goddess voguing on a stage. The eagle's talons cradle the maiden's hip while the bogus snake caught delicately in the eagle's beak is the maiden's mantle or ribbon swirling up in the promising breeze. The female figure takes the prescribed pose of Salabhanjika, similar to Isis, the tree goddess of Egypt. The female figure takes the prescribed pose of Salabhanjika similar to Isis, the tree goddess of Egypt. The goddess identified with acacia offers food and water to the departed. The form is analogous to Maya Devi holding the branch of a Sala tree to deliver the miraculous rebirth to a Buddha. Sala (Shorea robusta) is a sigil; the tree stores water in its trunk; it gives life and permanent shelter. The Indo-European word "Sala" means house. To be born under the "Sala" in the Sala grove establishes the immortal Buddha as a sunny Sala-pati, an unforgettable householder, as stated in Atharvaveda. This type of “Garuda and Nagin” reredos and votive badges sidestep the Buddhist narrative. To subtract its purpose, we must first acknowledge that the peculiar ex-votos pledged to the resurrection are from the centrally planned necropolises called Buddhist Monastery that emulate the Imperial cult of Rome. Form follows Function. How do we blend the rebirth story with the eagle lifting the Queen of Heaven? In Gandhara, the tree goddess enshrined in an aedicule stands with crossed legs, with her weight gracefully shifted on one leg. With one arm raised to hold the tree and the other hand on the hip, the divine maiden emulates the hieratic pose of a goddess. Under the molded laurel wreath of victory, Salabhanjika stands on the Amrit Kalash, the elixir of life is linked to goddess Lakshmi identified as the mother of Buddha by Coomaraswamy (0.2). A brimming pot topped by lotus is the fertile female principle; in the Buddhist cult, a girdled pot with splayed legs exposing a metaphorical vulva is revered as Yoni and personified as the “shameful” Lajja Gaur. Corresponding Santanalakshmi in South India is the goddess of sexuality, fertility, and abundance (0.3). Amrit of immortality knit with the enduring 0.1 Garuda and Nagini, Schist, Rhode Tope, Sanghao, Mardan district, Swat Valley, 2nd century CE New Delhi: National Museum of India (Photo M. Serrot, 1883) 0.2 Salabhanjika on Amrita Kalash, Schist, 23.5x9.8x6.2 cm, Kagirkot, Pakistan, 2nd century CE London: British Museum (OA 1899.6-9.8) 0.3 Santanalakshmi /Lajja Gauri, Limestone stele, Amaravati stupa, Andhra Pradesh, 2nd century CE 4 Albert Grunwedel, Buddhist art in India /Buddhistische Kunst in Indien (London: Santiago de Compostela, 1965) pp.109-10, fig.61. (First published in 1893,1900) Goddess Gajalakshmi churned from the “Ocean of Milk” is an inversion of the Isis-Hathor myth. Besides, a pot of water signifies the womb of goddess Lakshmi and Isis. Milk offerings in a globular pot in ancient Egypt is a sigil for the “Rivers of Milk” flowing from Isis-Hathor, it repeats as the pot of elixir holding the lotus of resurrection in early Buddhist art (0.4).5 0.4 Amrit Kalash in lotus medallion, Sandstone stupa railing, Mathura, 2nd century CE 0.5 Bronze situla with lion spout and breasts, Gandhara, 1st-2nd century CE (Luristan ca. 800–700 BCE?) California: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (B60B620) After Harry Falk, 2012 0.6 Gajalakshmi inscribed tondo, Sandstone, Bharhut stupa relic, 2nd century CE 0.7 Nagalakshmi, Sandstone medallion in situ, Sanchi Stupa 2, 1st-2nd century CE In Egyptian hieroglyphics, the phonetic value of globular water-pot “Nw / Nu” portent god Nw (Nu) the cosmic water, whose female counterpart is the sky goddess Nut merged with Isis. Situla is an unequivocal element in the cult of Isis; the abundant archaeological finds of the Roman period Situla is the measure of the worldwide popularity of the Isis cult. Situla is a spouted pot with a handle used in rituals; the ceremonial vessel consecrates the Dream of Maya tondo on the railing of Bharhut stupa inscribed “Descent of the Lord” (Bhagavato ukramti) in Prakrit Brahmi. Now, the brass Situla known as Kamandal (Sk. Kamandalu) is a puja vessel used by Saivite priests and ascetics. Stylistically a Situla in the Museum of San Francisco known as Luristan bronze from the cemeteries in northern Iran is a Roman-Syrian vessel. It has a lion spout encircled by ten bullae resembling the multiple breasts of the famous Diana of Ephesus representing Artemis related to the bee goddess of Egypt (0.5). As a result of widespread illicit trade in Central Asian antiquities, the astonishing ritual vessel is one of the countless artifacts clubbed as Luristan bronze dated to 8th century BCE. However, a Luristan bronze plaque counterfeiting a pair of gold and turquoise clasps from Tillya Tepe Tomb VI urge a review of the current dating. The Luristan bronze matching Tillya Tepe gold buckle was obviously from the same workshop; it depicts Bacchus and Ariadne or Cybele and Attis seated jauntily on a lion treading on a “Barbarian” wearing a fur coat.6 Signs of Nirvana Long before the cult of Vishnu, the concept of Avatar or reincarnation is normal in Buddhist belief. Lakshmi is the consort of protective solar deity Vishnu; the goddess first installed in the Buddhist monuments as Gajalakshmi is lustrated by paired elephants that customarily represent kings. On a 5 A. K. Coomaraswamy, Early Indian Sculptures: Six Reliefs from Mathura (Boston: Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Vol. 24, No. 144, Aug., 1926) p.56, fig.6. ‘pp. 54-60’ 6 Arputharani Sengupta, Buddhist Jewels in Mortuary Cult: Magic Symbols (New Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, Vol.2, 2019) pp.257, 260-261, fig.6.26. ‘2 vols.’ votive token from Bharhut stupa, Gajalakshmi stands on Amrita Kalash filled with lotus of rebirth. The semi-nude goddess holds out her breast like Isis-Hathor and offers perennial “River of Milk” that nourishes the dead (0.6). The undiminished hieratic poise of Lakshmi is akin to Venus. The cherished goddess arose with Dhanvantari, the divine physician equal to Asclepius resurrected by Zeus as the god of medicine. Dhanvantari is believed to be an Avatar of Vishnu residing with his consort Lakshmi in Vaikuntha. The nascent elements of Hindu mythology and iconography are deducted in Greco-Buddhist art. If there is a life philosophy, it's a ferocious metamorphosis in the domain of the underworld goddesses Persephone, Demeter, Hecate, and Isis. Having aquatic and terrestrial ancestry, the fecund cobra goddess Nagalakshmi similar to Isis renews life in the netherworld known as Patal Lok. The subterranean cobra goddess emits flame and spreads her multiple heads to shield her devotees in several Buddhist monuments (0.7). 0.8 Nagalakshmi and Garuda on a garland swag, Limestone coping, Amaravati, 2nd century CE London: British Museum 0.9 Garuda gifts Amrita of Immortality, Schist, Gandhara, 2nd century CE (e-Auction) Garuda often appears with the cobra, but what is taken to be a mortal clash of nature is a synergetic relationship between a winged Deva and an anguiped Devi with ophidian attributes. The anthropomorphized winged Garuda brought the vessel of Amrita portentous of goddess Lakshmi. The nectar of immortality is worshiped as Dipalakshmi, the eternal lamp who answers prayers (Ditya). The goddess is invoked as Aditya is the resplendent Dipta shining like the sun. In a unique Amaravati relief, Nagalakshmi represented as a cobra with five heads is held tenderly by Garuda. The mystical couple is magnified right above a sun disc (Aditya) inserted in the flowing flower garland. Nagalakshmi’s twisted tail jack-up the celestial bird; their symbiotic relationship related to Garuda’s role as the Vahan of Vishnu and Lakshmi gives credence to archaic animalhuman-divine spirit fusion (0.8). The Puranas describe Garuda as the Supreme Self, an embodiment of the Self inseparable from Vishnu; according to George Williams, Garuda from the root verb gri is the voice.7 Although Garuda is part of Vishnu mythology, Garuda conspicuous in the Garuda Tantra and Kirana Tantra is a metaphor of atman in Shaivite belief and mythology. 7 George M. Williams, Handbook of Hindu Mythology (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008) pp. 138– 139. Garuda, the king of birds called Garutman in the Rigveda and Mahabharata is a shapeshifter that could halt heaven, earth, and hell with a flap of his wing.8 Shatapatha Brahmana in Yajurveda personifies Garuda as courage. Garuda, the ever-ready helper on the banner of Vishnu, carried Amrit, the Nectar of immortality reserved for Devas residing in Amaravati, the eternal city of immortals in Indralok. On the way, Garuda was forced to give the pot of Amrita in exchange for his mother confined by the Nagas. As the serpent clan commenced the rites to partake ambrosia of immortality, Garuda winged away with Amrit placed on the sacred Darbha (Desmotachya bipinnata) or Kusa grass used in Hindu rituals. Nagas’ tongue split when they licked the dew of nectar off the Kusa grass, therefore, the Naga still confined to the netherworld gained divine status. Garuda having bestowed Amrit towers over a joyous worshiper holding a vessel embossed with the lotus of rebirth. The anthropomorphic form of Amrita holding a pot of elixir on her hip looks up to meet Garuda’s tender gaze (0.9). The unusual frieze from Gandhara shows Garuda hold ribbons in its beaks suggesting “binding protection”. The configuration of such streamers is taken to be “Love Cord” known as Pasha Kayiru in Tamil, which is also held by Yama Dharmaraja taking the soul to its earned place in heaven. Several limestone stele is known as “Palnad marble” is installed on the drum and dome of Amaravati stupa. Among them, a globular Purnaghata or the urn of plenty overflowing with lotus flowers and buds appears on an inscribed stepped altar. The decorative ‘vessel of plenty’ with a girdle of floral swags personifies goddess Lakshmi in marriage rituals and Hindu worship.9 The Amalaka sigil on its narrow neck is a ridged bead talisman, which as the coping stone on the crown of a Hindu temple provides the Dwar or doorway to heaven. Nagalakshmi conspicuous on Amaravati stupa stele recurs in rock-cut Buddhist caves and stupa monuments. A memorial stele from Amaravati stupa demonstrates cognition by reproducing the multiheaded cobra goddess protecting the reliquary stupa monument. The revered sanctuary of Nagalakshmi secured by reef-knots signifies goddess Isis (0.10). The cobra has notable importance in Hindu mythology; Lord Vishnu rests on the immense seven-hooded Adi Shesha Nag. Vasuki coiled around Lord Shiva's neck was used as a rope around Mandara Parvat to churn Amrita during Samudra Manthan. A cracked narrative panel in V&A depicts a seated figure wrapped in the coils of a snake so that only his head is visible under the seven heads of its expanded hood. By his side, other snakes bend down their hoods in devotion.10 At left a man in the graveyard stands by a tomb vault and a mastaba under the beam of light. The Linga like the flattened topknot (Ushnisha) of a head appears in the arched doorway of the vault (0.11). Ackermann identified the unusual relief from Gandhara as the Naga king Mucilinda protecting enlightened Buddha assailed by raging tempest for seven days.11 Some rare “Buddha 8 Roshen Dalal, Hinduism: An Alphabetical Guide (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2010) pp. 144–145. Purnaghata stele, Limestone, 137.50x81.25x15 cm, Amaravati, Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh, 2nd century CE, London: British Museum (1880.0709.54) 10 James Fergusson (1808-1886), Tree and Serpent Worship: Illustrations of Mythology and Art of India (Great Britain, India Office: W.H. Allen & Co., 1873) plate XCVI, 4, https://archive.org/details/gri_33125010818173 11 Hans Christoph Ackermann, Narrative Stone Reliefs from Gandhara in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Catalogue and Attempt at a Stylistic History. Reports and Memoirs. Director of the Series Giuseppe Tucci. Volume XVII. IsMEO, Rome, 1975. 9 sheltered by coiled Muchalinda” is from Gandhara.12 The overlapping continuity and commonality of ophidian symbolism have its roots in reptilian wisdom that taught humans how to transcend harmful entities by augmenting positive forces in nature. The rite of seeking the blessing of the cobra deity takes place on Nag Panchami at the start of the monsoon in the lunar month of Shravan (July-August). Cobras swaying in unison in baskets similar to Cista Mystica are worshiped with milk and other offerings on the fifth day in Shukla Paksha, which is five days after Purnima, the waxing phase of the moon (0.12). It is followed by Raksha-Bandhan: The ritual “bond of protection” takes place on Shravan Purnima, the full moon day in the rainy season, when a protective cord is tied by a maiden around the wrist of a “brother” – a blood brother or brotherly male relative or friend. In Tamil, a twisted rope called Kayiru is a code for a snake.13 0.10 Nagalakshmi sanctuary, Stupa drum, Limestone, Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh, 2nd century CE London: British Museum 0.11 Buddha coiled by cobra, Schist, 16.51x 25.4cm, Gandhara, London: Victoria and Albert Museum (IS.179-1949) Langford Jones Bequest 0.12 Cobra adored as Nag Devata on Nag Panchami in North India, 2019 (Vrat and Puja on11 July 2020) Every icon has a story to tell; winged cherubs buttress a faceted gemstone on the forehead of a full-length Bodhisattva from Gandhara. His idealized mustached face with downcast eyes is a frozen death mask customary in Roman funerary processions. Fully armed with protective talismans, his earrings in the form of winged griffin signify goddess Isis. Garuda and Nagin embrace in a flutter of ruffled silk on the cockade of his turban (0.13). Small replicas of Garuda and Nagin crest jewel in the form of a stone-badge are peculiar ex-votos found in Gandhara. With its beaks, the eagle lovingly ruffles the tresses of Nagin and the celestial maiden cradled in its claws lovingly caresses his wing. The resurrected dead transported to the realm of gods join the divine dance simulated by the embossed gold brooch in ruffled silk surrounded by a string of radiant pearls (0.14a).14 The celestial couple in Amaravati portrayed as Garuda and Nagalakshmi too are committed to the splendid afterlife. For precision and purpose, we may refer to them as 12 Buddha in the coils of Muchalinda, Bonham's Indian, Himalayan and Southern Asian Art, Lot 15, New York, 18 March 2013. 13 A cord dyed in turmeric yellow tied by the groom around the neck of a Tamil bride ensures endless conjugal bliss of a ‘Sumangali’. The rite of tying a string (Tamil. Nool or Mangalnan) seeks protection and propitious outcome. Nool dyed in red is tied around the wrist. Black thread is tied around the ankle of child. Aranjanam or Araijan Kayiru in Tamil and Malayalam is a cord girdling the waist of infants and children. Instead of black or red thread, the ‘Araijan Kodi’ might be made of gold or silver. 14 Christies, New York|18 March 2015 (Sold $13,750) Garuda and Nagin. Typically, the divine couple carved in the circular stone badge edged in ruffled silk is dedicated to the departed in transit to heaven (0.14b,c). The heightened potency of the amulets in chlorite schist was such that anyone touched by it would flourish and be transformed. In this category is a rare Garuda and Nagin stamped on a bulla from Gandhara. The inscribed elliptical impression in clay is a mirror image of an engraved scarab gemstone characteristic of Egypt (0.15). The composition of Garuda and Nagin is dynamic in its simplicity; yet, the two tiny attendant figures similar to the Dioscuri escort Zeus’s eagle abducting Ganymede, the cupbearer to the Olympians. Two similar “Sasanian Glyptic” have been reported.15 0.13 Garuda-Nagin cockade of standing Bodhisattva, H.120 cm, Shahbaz Garhi, Pakistan, 2nd century CE Paris: Musée Guimet (AO 2907) 0.14a Garuda-Nagin cockade, Schist, H.11.4 cm, Gandhara, 2nd century CE Ex Collection of Rita Perry, Lörrach, Germany, acquired between 1963-1972 (e-Auction) 0.14b Garuda-Nagin badge, Schist, H.11.4 cm / H.10.2 cm, Sangao, 2nd century CE 0.14c Garuda-Nagin badge, Schist, Takht-i-Bahi, Pakistan, 2nd century CE Peshawar Museum (1907.3312) 0.15 Garuda-Nagin stamped bulla, Glyptic art, Gandhara, 2nd-3rd century CE Boston: Museum of Fine Arts (36.622) Ganymede and Zeus’ Eagle Among mutating forms and figures, Garuda embracing Nagin overlaps Zeus’ eagle abducting Ganymede (0.16). In about 1885 Henry Hardy Cole related the peculiar Garuda and Nagin cult images to the famous statue of Ganymede and Zeus in Rome copied from a bronze statuette by Leochares contemporary to Alexander the Great.16 Ganymede in Greek legend is the son of Tros (or Laomedon), the king of Troy. The handsome prince tending sheep was abducted by Zeus from Mount Ida near Troy in Phrygia. Zeus as an eagle transported Ganymede to Mount Olympus to be cupbearer and servant of the gods. In one version Supreme Power of Zeus compensated Ganymede’s father with a golden vine. Or a pair of divine horses were presented by Hermes with the message that by the will of Zeus, Ganymede received the gift of eternal youth and immortality. Ganymede and Zeus’ Eagle are more a symbol of ‘divine love, youth, beauty, and immortality’ than being ‘raped’ by lustful Zeus. Jupiter/Zeus honored the elevation of Ganymede by placing the eagle in the heavens as the constellation Aquila the Eagle and immortalized Ganymede as the constellation Aquarius, the water bearer. A moon of Jupiter named Ganymede is the largest moon 15 D. H. Biver, An Unknown Punjab seal Collection (INSI, 1961) pp. 316-17, VII, 17. Clay bulla with Pahlavi / Aramaic Inscription: ‘Ostandar Verozan’, 19.7 x 19.7 mm, Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale. 16 Roman marble copy of a bronze statuette of Ganymede and the Eagle by Leochares (326 BCE), 2nd century CE, Rome Vatical Museum (2445) in our solar system and the only moon with its magnetic field. The magnetic field causes aurorae, which are ribbons of glowing, hot electrified gas, in regions circling the north and south poles of the moon. Because Ganymede is close to Jupiter, it is also embedded in Jupiter's magnetic field. When Jupiter's magnetic field changes, the aurorae on Ganymede also change, "rocking" back and forth. 0.16 Garuda and Nagini, Schist, 40.6 x 23.4 x 7.5 cm, Gandhara, 2nd century CE Canberra: National Gallery of Australia (NGA 1978) 0.17 Divine love of Ganymede and Zeus’ Eagle, Bronze, iron, 33 x 31 x 15 cm, Asia Minor, 250-100 BCE Tbilisi: Georgian National Museum, Georgia 0.18 Youth rises with eagle, Painted lantern ceiling, Kizil Cave 165, Xinjiang Uyghur, China, 395-500 CE After Albert von le Coq (1860-1930) The mystery of Greco-Buddhist cult deepens with Hero worship in antiquity equated to “Divine Love” of Zeus and Ganymede, the cup-bearer in Olympia. On the ground level, from Alexander to Julius Caesar and Hadrian, it meant being “Every woman’s man, every man’s woman.” The unparalleled Garuda and Nagin are imbued with cultural knowledge; it is as much the product of a historical environment as the restoration of Ganymede in the Cult of Antinous in Greco-Buddhist South Asia. While the form is dynamic in its simplicity, the hieratic frontality of the pose demonstrates that the lissome Phrygian prince abducted by Zeus in his eagle Avatar is transformed into a voluptuous female by Greco-Buddhist art (0.17). In the reminiscence of Zeus and Ganymede, one could virtually visualize the choreography of The Rite of Spring by Vaslav Nijinsky. The mystery of fever pitch Spring and the great surge of creative power is visible in both the thematically divergent versions. The frenzy of unearthly “Divine Love” captured the heart of Central Asia flush with wealth generated by the Silk Road. Zeus’ eagle clasping Ganymede seem to break through the Trompe-l'œil painted lantern-deck ceiling of Kizil Cave 165; it was discovered by Albert von le Coq in the ancient Buddhist Kingdom of Kucha (0.18). This unusual painting in the Central Asian Buddhist cave is variously dated from 350 to 700 CE.17 However, the aim and intent of the Buddhist cave painting echoes ecstatic Ganymede embraced by Zeus’ eagle painted 17 Angela F. Howard, In Support of a New Chronology for the Kizil Mural Paintings (Archives of Asian Art, Vol. 44, 1991), pp. 68-83 [JSTOR 20111218] on a glass beaker from Alexandria found in the Kushan period Begram hoard in Afghanistan (0.19). The extraordinary subject painted in two different mediums has to considered in the context of Greco-Buddhist mortuary cult flourishing at a moment when the cult of Antinous was at its zenith. 0.19 Ganymede seized by Zeus’ eagle, Alexandrian glass painted in enamel, Begram, 1st-2nd century CE Paris: Musée Guimet 0.20 Ganymede offers cup to Zeus, Gold ewer Ø 13 cm, H. 23 cm, Kushan-Sasanian, 2nd-4th century CE Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Nagy Sankt Miklos Treasure (After David Marshall Lang) 0.21 Androgyne and Zeus’ eagle medallion, Guilloche shield on gold carafe, 1st half of 8th century BCE? Nagyszentmiklos: Sofia Archaeological Museum, Bulgaria (Photo Piergiorgio Pascal) The original Eagle and Nagin in Gandhara were choreographed by the multidisciplinary jeweler-sculptor. To the Egyptians the sculptor’s workshop was known as the ‘Place of Gold” — the goldsmith’s workshop expert in eastern Mediterranean tradition exploits the full potential of the homoerotic love of Ganymede and Zeus’ eagle on the sacerdotal vessels in treasure trove found in Nagyszentmiklos, now Sinicolaul in Romania. Gold ewers caught in the spirit of the moment are embossed with similar composition depicting Zeus’ eagle clutching elated Ganymede. One of them in Berlin and the other in Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna identified as Sasanian are conventionally dated to the 7th–8th century CE. Ganymede offers a conical cup to Zeus’ eagle and holds a leafy branch on the ritual gold vessel in Vienna. The epitome of unearthly love is trapped in the bounds of a medallion on both sides of the bulbous vessel weighing 733gram and 21carat. Rituals depend on the effectiveness of the sigil — from the wired egg-and-dart handle to embossed vegetal and vine motifs, each detail has been considered for its effectiveness in magic (0.20a,b). A torus molding encircling the slender neck of the jug is not a simple decorative detail but an unswerving convex garland consecrated to the vessel personified as the goddess of fertility akin to Anahita or Amrita of immortality. In Hindu worship, a wreath of flower garland is similarly placed on the vessel. A gold carafe in the Bulgarian collection from the astounding Romanian Treasure depicts a hieratic eagle clutching a muscular transwoman in an ethereal airborne dance. There is a certain type of illumination unique to the genderless youth holding the lightning rod of Zeus in both the raised hands (0.21). The astounding Romanian Treasure, also called Nagy Sankt Miklos Treasure, was discovered in 1799. It comprises twenty-three gold vessels weighing a total of 10 kg. The carafe from the Romanian hoard now in Sofia Archaeological Museum of Bulgaria is dated to the first half of the 8th century BCE. But the other gold vessels from the same hoard in Berlin and Vienna assign the craftsmanship to Iran during the Sasanian-Byzantian period. This puts the classic gold flasks from Romanian Treasure in a cul-de-sac. The ecstatic eagle lifting an androgynous youth with the droopy breast is displayed on what appears to be a vintage Roman vessel. Between the four entwined circles a branched tree emerges from an inverted heart introduced in early Buddhist art. Caught in the infinite sky the forked branches flash bolts of renewed life. The gold carafe basking in divine love cause aeration; metamorphosis release trapped aroma and flavors of wine it once served in rituals. The sophisticated medals entwined by protective guilloche proliferate Roman mosaic floors. the guilloche result from tangled mating snakes; later, the motif is transformed into anguiped Fu -Hsi and Nu-Wa in the silk funerary banner paintings of Central Asia. As Theodore Roethke once said, “I live between the heron and the wren/beasts of the hill and serpents of the den…” In 1936 a hoard of ecclesiastic vessels was discovered in Cherdin on the banks of the Kama River in Western Russia. The superb craftsmanship developed by the generation of goldsmiths and silversmiths can be attributed to the workshops in the Eastern Mediterranean. Like vintage wine, a whiff of spirit trapped in the splendid vessels for centuries resuscitate the Mystery religions – the spiral from Mediterranean ricochet from the lapels of the Black Sea into South Asia. Historically the sacred vessels from these hoards have to be seen in the context of embossed silver vessels from Gandhara.18 We have to acknowledge that at this remote point in time the “World was One.” Enigmatic cults booming worldwide are strangely linked to the wealth of material culture kept in abeyance in the ruined villas in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Boscoreale. The wide distribution characteristic of the Roman period is due to rapid communication among cult members moving through the vast flowing Volga system of the Urals and Siberia linked to the International waterways of the 2850 km long Danube River that flows through several central European capitals, before reaching the Black Sea via Danube Delta in Romania and Ukraine. In all this, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea hold strategic importance while the major catalyst appears to be Anatolia. A gold plate in the Hermitage Museum transforms homoerotic love into the Eagle and Nagin motif of Gandhara. In the frontal composition, the hieratic eagle turned right lifts the nude female by cupping her sexy hips in its claws. Between the symmetrical flowering plants, the bedecked nude female with long double braid swings with both hands raised: One hand holds the eagle’s wing while a triangular object in her other hand is raised to touch the eagle’s beak turned right. At the point of contact Tetractys or “four-group” of numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, has zero dimension. Tetractys is a sacred symbol of Pythagorean cult signifying space and the four elements — fire, air, water, and earth. A variety of Tetractys gold bead amulet found in burials is from Tillya Tepe 18 Elizabeth Errington and Joe Cribb (eds.) The Crossroads of Asia; The Transformation of Image and Symbol in the Art of Ancient Afghanistan and Pakistan (Cambridge: The Ancient India and Iran Trust, 1992) pp.91-95, figs.97, 98, color plate, pp.x-xi. necropolis in Afghanistan.19 Two allegoric figures flank the eagle’s stiff tail-feathers suggesting Day and Nishant marking the end of Night (Sk. nish-night + aant-end) is represented by an archer with drawn bow at right, and a man with hand raised in assurance shouldering an ax at left (0.22). The subordinate figures allegedly correspond to the Gemini twins in the painted ceiling of Kizil Cave 165.20 The gold plate has a lotus petal frame around a vegetal scroll that entwines a bird of prophecy top right and two dogs, one top left and the other bottom right, which perhaps represents Anubis and Hecate, the two deities with canine familiars involved in the afterlife. Smirnov documents enigmatic sigils on two other silver plates from the same hoard dated to the first half of 6th century CE at St. Petersburg’s State Hermitage Museum. One of them displays a bird of paradise at the center. A lactating tigress linked to the Bacchic cult is surrounded by two birds and a dog caught in the vegetal scroll with pomegranates, grapes, and flowers are in repousse on the other silver plate (Ø 22.8cm). Religious iconography on these ritual vessels relates to the Roman mosaic across the Channel: The multifaceted Four Seasons mosaic at Bignor, Leadenhall Street Mosaic depicting Bacchus riding a tiger in the British Museum, and “Orpheus” tiger mosaic in Cirencester Corinium Museum. So far, the cult centers are perceptible only through treasured priestly vessels. Naturally, iconography as a resource and as an instrument of worship varies according to material and cult predilections. This brings us back to Ganymede and Zeus’ eagle floor mosaic in Bignor Roman villa surrounded by stunning views of Southern England inWest Sussex, UK (0.23a). The prospect of Divine Love tondo highlighted by the checkered, geometric floor mosaic surround a sanctifying hexagonal sunken pool that was likely 0.22 Eagle and Nagin gold emblem, Ø 32 cm, Cherdin, Permnear the Ural Mountains, Kushan-Sasanian St. Petersburg: Hermitage Museum (S217) Discovered in 1936 0.23a Ganymede and Eagle mosaic, Bignor Roman Villa, Bignor, West Sussex, Southern England, UK 0.23b Geometric floor mosaic, Bignor Roman Villa, England, Discovered by George Tupper in 1811 19 Arputharani Sengupta, Buddhist Jewels in Mortuary Cult: Magic Symbols (New Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, 2019, Vol.2) p. 317, figs.39-41. ‘2 vols.’ 20 Guitty Azarpay, A Jataka Tale on a Sasanian Silver Plate (Bulletin of the Asia Institute, New Series, Vol. 9, 1995), pp.99-104, figs.1, 5. ‘pp. 99-125’ [JSTOR 24048818] at the epicenter of rituals. The sacrament of renewal and resurrection performed in the secretive Villa was available to all the cult members coming from a large Roman cemetery located at the London to Brighton Way crossing. The road passes through some of the strategically important iron-producing areas of the Weald and was partly constructed from iron slag in those areas. The tactical arrangement of mosaic in brilliantly colored panels includes quatrefoil heart framed by a geometric three-dimensional swastika, paired hearts, and the popular Solomon Knot (0.23b). The beating heart sigil fashioned in incorruptible gold is a unique pair of ear clips, beads, and cutout applique in Tillia Tepe burials (0.24a).21 A group of musicians from the stupa at Airtam in Uzbekistan has comparable appliquéd decoration on the sleeves and neckline of the garment. The eagle and its feathers too have great cultural and spiritual value – schematic bird wings in gold strung through soldered tubes to form a necklace or belt are from Gandhara (0.24b). Similar mortuary jewelry pieces are from Passani stupa and Tulkhar burial ground in Tajikistan. Such jewelry components from Egypt are spread across the Roman Empire.22 0.24a Heart gold disc applique, Tillya Tepe necropolis, Afghanistan, 1st century CE, Kabul Museum 0.24b Solar crescent on gold eagle wings, Gandhara, 1st-2nd century CE, Cleveland Museum of Art 0.25a Ganymede and the Mystic Cup, Bignor Roman Villa, Bignor, West Sussex, 2nd-4th century CE 0.25b Swastika & Twisted bundle of silk cord, Mosaic border, Bignor Roman Villa, 2nd-4th century CE 0.26a Ganymede, Cup-bearer to Zeus, Alexandrian plaster cast, Ø 14cm, Begram, 1st-2nd century CE Kabul: National Museum of Afghanistan 0.26b Ganymede, Cup-bearer to Zeus, Gypsum tondo from Alexandria, Begram, 1st-2nd century CE Paris: Musée Guimet (AKG185329) 0.27 Zeus’ eagle sanctifies man personified as Ganymede, Schist, H.16 cm, Gandhara, 2nd century CE Paris: Private Collection (after Tissot) 21 Arputharani Sengupta, Buddhist Jewels in Mortuary Cult: Magic Symbols (New Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, Vol.2, 2019,) p. 317, figs.39-41. ‘2 vols.’ Gold and turquoise heart earrings of a princess, H. 7.2 cm, Tillia Tepe Tomb V, Afghanistan, 1st century CE, Kabul Museum (MK 04.40.137) 22 Petra Belanova, Ancient Adornments of Central Asia Influenced by the Greek Jewellery of the Classical and Hellenistic Period (Studia Hercynia XX/1, Prague: Charles University, 2016) p.122 ‘pp.111-126’ Genetic and Cognitive Artforms When Roman empresses were personified as goddesses, the courtesan-dancers, probably doubling as priestesses, serve as the model for various goddesses in Buddhist South Asia. The tondo portrait of a divine female accompanied by dolphins and the peacocks on the Bignor floor mosaic distinguished as Isis-Venus or Juno could be a priestess. Roman mosaic floors do incorporate commemorative portraits that are valued, cult members. The mosaic floral scroll as delicate as the embossed vine encountered in the Romanian Treasure provides an arched niche that uses the Cup of Life as a pictorial trope signifying resurrection and immortality (0.25a). In addition to dancing girls, cherubs and the gladiators with wings give a foreboding performance of the afterlife. The gladiators are ostensibly accessories to cult rituals. The Borghese estate at Torrenova, on the Via Casilina outside Rome, discovered in 1834 has the famous Gladiator Mosaic measuring about 28 meters, dated to the first half of the 4th century. Why gladiators? In what way the gladiator is a medium to the metamorphosis that took place in the Roman villas? Your body stands on edge when you see the gladiators coming out. Besides being a skilled juggler and a spectacular dancer against a backdrop of fame, how would it be to display courage, endurance, and ferocity in an arena, knowing the end is death? And, how would it feel that as the special Chosen One, beyond death you will live forever? Because the gladiators knew what was going to happen hereafter? Like early Christian martyrs, the valiant soldiers of the Almighty? The “twisted bundle of the cord” known as the Solomon Knot combined with the Swastika meander on the Bignor Roman mosaic reinforces its sacred function (0.25b). The weavers in India, as observed in person in Tamil Nandu and Odisha, worship a twisted bundle of red cord placed on an altar in mid-January, when ancestor worship takes place on the day the Sun transits Capricorn and commences its irresistible northward journey. The Day of Janus in the lunar calendar celebrated as the day of “new beginnings” is a religious festival bearing different regional names in India and Southeast Asia. The three-day festival in Tamil Nadu known as Pongal is a season of extravagant threshold drawings called Kolam meaning appearance and guise. The Nool Kandu Kolam meaning “Bundled of Thread” in Tamil is the Solomon Knot chosen as the sacred seat of the soul and favored by the Tamil Saivite Brahmins in South India.23 The illusionistic threedimensional Solomon Knot popular in the Roman mosaic is a geometric graphic sigil replicated without any apparent connection in the Kolam of Tamil Nadu in South India. The daily ritual threshold Kolam is “put” by “propitious” Tamil maidens and matrons to purify and protect their dwelling. Kolam is drawn first by a mathematical arrangement of dots – the dots link straight lines, or guide the interlacement of a smooth continuous line that transcribes an endless-knot Kolam. Another type of auspicious floor painting is the free-flowing Alpona done by the Hindu women of Bengal fluently simulating the painted ceilings of the Ajanta Caves. These customs contingent to genes and inherited memory is what we call tradition. The parallels drawn presents a problem regarding processes and situations. Did mosaicists in the Eastern Roman 23 d. Saswati Sengupta, Kolam Tradition in South India (New Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 2019) p.50, plate C1.29a-d,1.30a- Empire depend on the consecrated females to sanctify and create the ground plan first, to be filled in by skilled craftsmen of different categories who laid the colored tesserae? Such an undertaking being outside of an explanatory model, place, or content proper, and even beyond knowledge, the inquiry and the explanation linger without a resolution. The notion of likelihood presents a dilemma. The effect of individual action relies on this genetic approach; consider the idea of migratory sacred females fully in charge of existential secrets focused on life, death, the Universe, and Nirvana or Moksha. At present, the traditional Hindu housewives and their daughters take responsibility daily, even if it is just customary lighting of an incense stick. Imageries in the mosaics are related to the grave; the quirky extravagance exhibited by the far-flung Roman villas could be sponsored by a secret society engaged in a syncretic mortuary cult allied to the Mystery religions of the period. The enshrined female head and eagle lifting Ganymede tondos rendered in painterly trompe l'oeil style dominate the minute notes in the amazing Bignor floor mosaic, which seem to be part of the wave of Mystery Villas spread across North Africa, the Levant and parts of Europe. Among Hellenistic subject in Roman mosaic, Ganymede and eagle return in a Villa at Baccano near Rome, which is now in Museo Nationale, Rome. Cupid leading Zeus's eagle to Ganymede seated at a wayside curb is a slice of mural painting in Naples Archaeological Museum, which once enhanced the House of Meleager in Pompeii. The “Four Seasons–Ganymede” Roman mosaic in Tunisia outshines even Sidus Iulium and the Apotheosis of Julius Caesar.24 The floor mosaic from a Roman villa now in the Archaeological Museum in El Jem Tunisia depicts the Rape of Ganymede medallion surrounded by the Four Seasons in a complex arrangement of figures within a framed square mosaic (43.2 x 28.8 cm). The splendid mosaic is probably parallel to the Four Seasons marble sarcophagus in Rome (104 x 239 cm) that sanctions the lure of perpetual heavenly life articulated by winged cherubs and the Triumph of Dionysus, Endymion, Attis, and Adonis. Incredibly, the anguiped Tritons and hippocamps in the spandrels of the blind tombs carved on the sarcophagus flourish in stupa sculpture and the libation plates of Gandhara. Maha Pita Bhishma says to Yama Dharmaja that the most amazing thing is that human beings die every day, yet all wish to live forever.25 By believing the inevitable will exempt them they go a step further and resort to acquiring eternal youth and endless life using artifice. This is demonstrated by the Kushan hoard in Begram Room No. 13 that includes plaster casts of Greek mythological scenes from Alexandria, two Selene, and Endymion tondos, and two conventional medallions of Ganymede feeding Zeus’ Eagle (0.26a,b). Gypsum and the ancient skill of molding the soft sulfate mineral are native to Egypt and Anatolia. The Ganymede plaster plaques made in Alexandria were deposited in Begram, and Sanchi style ivory figurine of Salabhanjika inscribed “Sri” in Brahmi designating Lakshmi (H.25 cm) and now named the “Indian Venus” was found near the temple of Isis-Venus in Pompeii. If nothing else, these confirm a vast network and cult 24 Kenneth Scott, The Sidus Iulium and the Apotheosis of Caesar (Classical Philology, Vol. 36, No. 3, Juyly, 1941) pp. 257-272 [JSTOR 265276] 25 MB, Ch. 4, Anusasanika parva. affiliations linking Buddhist South Asia. Cult objects from Alexandria in a variety of exotic materials found its way to ancient Kapisa in the Parwan province of Afghanistan. Located close to Iran and Mongolia, with Russia to the north and the Amu Darya on the Crossroads of Asia, Afghanistan’s connection to Turkey and the evolving Black Sea-Caspian Regions made it easily accessible to the international waterways of the Danube River. Aquila and Maha Kala A partially restored head in high relief hacked from a larger figure of a Bodhisattva is an unusual type from Gandhara. It portrays Zeus’ eagle perched on the head of a man personified as Ganymede. The checkered feathers on the eagle’s neck mutate into a Phrygian cap rimmed with a solar sigil. Then, what appears to be a strip of appliqued sequin on a headband converts into a garland adorning the eagle’s neck. The eagle’s beak bends protectively over the man’s face frozen like a death mask with downcast eyes. To Tissot, the head with long flowing hair, mustache, and aggressive sideburns resembled a “barbarian king” (0.27).26 The head carved in intercultural style is related to the memorial statues in Hatra, Palmyra, and Anatolia. Similarly, a solid leaded bronze disc from Gandhara depicts the frontal head of a beardless Roman in high relief capped by a winged eagle. The commemorative head surrounded by a beaded rim is distinguished by a cape with a large circular collar brooch (Ø 5.9cm, A.I.C Coll.).27 In Imperial Rome, a loose cape known as the paludamentum fastened at one shoulder was a sign of honor worn by a high-ranking military officer such as the legionary Legatus, and rarely by their troops. The donor of the votive was mindful of the flapping cape generally in crimson, scarlet, or purple, and occasionally white fabric. The winged griffin signifying goddess Isis is an impassable shield in the Roman world; the Bodhisattva’s winged griffin earrings and Garuda perched on the crest of his turban give assured safety and comfort in the afterlife (0.28). An unexpected twist comes from a Puranic legend; Gajendra Moksha describes the immediate rescue of Gajendra the elephant king by Garuda, the rapid carrier of Vishnu. Gajendra caught in the unrelenting jaws of death throes was rapidly sinking into the waterlogged subterranean Southern Reach where Naga Raja and Naga Devi associated with Osiris and Isis reside. Hearing his agonized cry for help, Garuda conveying Vishnu the savior swished in – the remarkable frieze recounting this event is installed on the sidewall of a very early Gupta temple at Deogarh in North India (0.29).28 The winged redeemer akin to Horus swoops in above Gajendra standing in the Padmalaya of Sri Lakshmi. The propitious configuration confirms redemption and blissful afterlife of Gajendra in Vaikuntha/Swarga or Indralok, where a cloud-like white elephant called Airavata transports the Lord Indra. Liberation known as Moksha, Mukti, or Nirvana is a shared belief among Buddhists, Jains, and Hindus. A semicircular rock-cut 26 F. Tissot, Iconographic remarks about a head of the barbarian king of Gandhara (Ars Asiatique 32, 1976) pp.71-90. In French: Remarques iconographiques à propos d'une tête de roi barbare du Gandhāra. 27 Elizabeth Errington, Joe Cribb (eds.), The Crossroads of Asia: Transformation in Image and Symbol in the Art of Ancient Afghanistan and Pakistan (Cambridge: Ancient India and Iran Trust, 1992) p. 116, fig.119. Cat. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK 28 Gajendra Moksha Stuthi is a Sanskrit Hymn in the Bhagwat Purana. Gajendra Moksha Stotra is a prayer of surrender to the Lord addressed to Vishnu for protection. tank in front of the temple is a distinctive feature in various Buddhist monuments. The Deogarh Temple is a veritable pantheon of Hindu gods; it is located among Buddhist and Jain monuments in the Betwa River Valley along the Deogarh Hill meaning the “Fortress of God” (Deo-god, Garhfortress). 0.28 Garuda, savior of Bodhisattva, Schist, Gandhara, 2nd century CE (e-Auction) 0.29 Gajendra Moksha, Dashavatara Gupta Temple on Betwa River near Jansi, Deogarh, Central India 0.30 Assembled reliquary stupa, Bronze, H. 25.2 cm, Mingora Cave, Swat Valley, 2nd century CE Photo Harry Falk 0.31a Reliquary taken by Maha Kala, Sandstone balustrade of Bharhut stupa, 2nd century CE 0.31b Garuda standard in a procession, Sandstone balustrade of Bharhut stupa, 2nd century CE Drawing Suma Lata, 2009 0.32 Triumphant Antinous riding Hermes’ horse (rev.), Æ Obol, Bithynia Mint, 2nd century CE An unexpected twist to the story of apotheosis comes from a Buddhist “Fumigating Elephant” that is presumably from a dispersed hoard of ceremonial bronzes secreted in a manmade cave along the tributary of Swat River near Mingora in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.29 Harry Falk had gone to great lengths to relate the bronze “incense burner” published by Kurita (2003) through a comparative study of a matching relic supposedly from the same hoard in the collection of Aman ur Rahman (0.30).30 The elephant casket has a hinged lid; the hollow elephant with a rider cast in one piece supports a reliquary stupa surmounted by detachable emblem rivetted to the lateral sun and moon discs. At the center a seated Buddha embossed in a raised Kala Chakra (Ø 4.9 cm) is encircled by stars and a pair of trefoils on surging stems at the top. Regrettably, the smooth elephant with a curved trunk holding the residue of an unknown substance lacks the type of apertures needed to waft smoldering incense. The assembled bronze relic measuring 25.2 cm in height appears to be a curious reliquary casket shaped like an elephant, but it is ambiguous whether the domical stupa contained any relic in its square base. 29 Several ritual bronzes from the Mingora Cave hoard are in the reserve collection of the Matsudo Museum of Art, Tokyo, allegedly acquired from T. Kaku, Taiyo Ltd., Tokyo. 30 Harry Falk, “Buddhist” Metalware from Gandhara (Bulletin of the Asia Institute New Series, Vol. 26, 2012) pp.3436, fig.2, ‘pp.33-60’ [academia.edu] Historically, Juba I of Numidia and other sovereigns of Africa were either personified as the elephant or wore the elephant head on the crown. While the Romans signified Africa by the elephant, the Greco-Buddhist cult of the early historic period undertook to stretch life to infinity through Saturn, the ancestral king of kings represented as Maha Kala the regal elephant. The homonym Kala meaning black as well as time aptly describes the dark blue ponderous Saturn oscillating in space. Harpa known as Ankusa is a hieroglyphic label, the Harpa insignia of Saturn is always pointed at the elephant head. Maha Kala typified by Mingora bronze reliquary casket elevates the human lifespan to infinity. It is reiterated by the Kala Chakra sigil at the very foundation of the reliquary stupa monument. An imposing witness to this idea is Maha Kala elevated by Ganas taking a relic casket in a procession on the sandstone corner pillar of Bharhut stupa railing (0.31). On the right side of the elephant supporting the Cista Mystica is a triumphant youth cantering on a horse. He leads the regal pageant holding a garland bearing Garuda standard matching Aquila the Eagle (0.32a). The image is an astounding counterpart to deified Antinous trotting on a horse; in the commemorative coin, he carried the standard of Ma of Coloma, the moon goddess revered in Anatolia. The “Ma” sigil corresponds to Triratna represented by the Brahmi letter (Ma) (0.32b). Interest in astrology led Emperor Hadrian to identify Antinous with an asterism in the night sky that merged into Aquila the Eagle in the constellation. The popular cult among the common people finds enigmatic expressions in Greco-Buddhist art. For example, a diademed, sword-bearing Greek youth echoes Greco-Roman Hero cult and Tomb cult in the Bharhut railing. From the Brink of Death — The gilded body doubles carved in schist substitute the deceased with radiant halo worshiped in various stupa complexes. A Hellenistic “Bodhisattva” in Gandhara is a lit-up prince draped in Phrygian tasseled stole and loaded with protective amulets (0.33). Two worlds meet on his chest: On a pectoral, Isis/Demeter of the underworld holds a cornucopia of abundance, and suspended below is an amulet pendant bead supported by winged angels. The beauty of the youth idealized in gilded metamorphic phyllite with micaceous sheen resembles Antinous, a Bithynian Greek youth (111-130 CE). The ill-fated lover of Emperor Hadrian drowned in the River Nile to serve as a majestic bridge to heaven. The 2nd-century Christian writer Tatian mentions a belief that Antinous’ likeness was placed over the face of the Moon, which might be a metaphoric allusion to the halo invented in Greco-Buddhist art. At a time when the dead came to be worshiped as gods and were offered oblations, Antinous was transformed into a deity to guide and protect the departed in the afterworld. As a result of his widespread cult, Antinous appears in a variety of sculptured images, busts, gems, and coins. Although many of Antinous’ images are instantly recognizable, a significant variation in terms iconography is found in a Roman coin that represents the youth as a shining star in the vault of heaven (0.34a). Kushan coins inscribed OΔΔO in Greek on one side and in Kharoshthi or Brahmi on the other seize the “great strider” pose from ancient Egypt to portray a wind god holding nimbus veil (0.34b,c). Indo-Greek bilingualism is one of the hybrid Kushan traits that adopts Antinous as Hermes/Mercury on horseback.31 Antinous in Alexandria mint posturing the “Great Departure” provides important iconographic clues to the origin of the regal equestrian commemorated in Kushan coins and sculptured reliefs (0.35a). Anointed as a priest of the imperial cult, deified Antinous incarnate of Hermes holds a magic wand, the caduceus with two entwined snakes signifying postmortem healing. Hermes is the son of Zeus and Maia, the eldest Pleiades born in Arcadia. Hermes couched in ‘hermeneutics’ interprets hidden meaning – Maia is the goddess of magic and childbirth while Maha Maya meaning Great Magic gives supernatural rebirth. The lustrating elephant as the symbol of Egypt points to goddess Isis installed as Maha Maya Lakshmi standing on the lotus of rebirth in Greco-Buddhist cult (0.35b). 0.33 Radiant youth draped in tasseled stole, Gilded Schist, 62x26 cm, Gandhara, 2nd century CE Lahore Museum (2354) 132x61cm 0.34a Antinous the Great Strider commemorative coin minted by Bithynion-Claudiopolis, 2nd century CE ob: Caracalla, with legend AVKMAVP | ANTΩNINOC rev: Antinous dressed in a cloak and mantle, carrying a pedum, animal grazing behind, with legend BEIΘVNIEΩN AΔPIANΩN, In G. Blum, Numismatique D’Antinoos, 45, #13, Plate II, xxi. 0.34b,c Wind god OΔΔO / Great Strider Antinous? Bronze, Kushan commemorative coin, 2nd century CE London: British Museum 0.35a,b Azilises (Antinous?) the victorious on horse right, wears a tunic, holds an attribute, 2nd century CE ob: Equestrian modeled after Antinous/Hermes coins (Gk.) of the King of Kings Azilises the Great rev: Gajalakshmi (Prakrit Kharosthi) of the Great King, King of Kings Azilises the Great (16 CE?) London: British Museum 31 Antinous as Hermes on horseback, Bronze Drachm 31mm (18.97 grams) Alexandria mint, struck 134-135 CE. Commemorative Bithynian coins in the reigns of Commodus (assassinated, 192 CE) or Caracalla (assassinated, 217 CE) G. Blum, Numismatique D’Antinoos, In Journal International D'Archeologie Numismatique 6 (Spring/Summer 1914): Plate II. Several commemorative coins show Antinous’ portrait. Antinous most readily identified with Ganymede created a seismic ambient din in the Hero cult typified by deified Bodhisattvas. It is impossible to disregard the influence of various other Hero cults on the new Greco-Buddhist cult, such as Hercules, Bacchus, Dioscuri, and Mithras, the coincidence of which ought to engender doubts about the motives we attribute to it at the moment. Antinous most readily identified with Ganymede created a seismic ambient din in the Hero cult typified by deified Bodhisattvas. It is impossible to disregard the influence of various other Hero cults, such as Hercules, Bacchus, and Dioscuri on the new Greco-Buddhist cult, the coincidence of which ought to engender doubts about the motives we attribute to it at the moment. Antinous, the Bithynian Greek youth depicted as Ganymede wears a Phrygian cap and stands with legs crossed in the elegant pose of Nagin in Gandhara (0.36). The eagle lifting the divine maiden is the rage of the Greco-Buddhist cult – in what might be metaphorical Psyche caught up by and espoused by divine spirit promising eternal youth and immortality (0.37a,b). Antinous is associated with the rebirth of the Nile, the celebration of which can be judged by the ritual worship of the Ganges that was reputedly replenished in the remote past by pouring the water brought from the Nile. The protective sigil of the Nile pouring water from a vessel, and enthroned Serapis on the gold coin of Kushan king Huvishka are enigmatic examples. Besides keeping a record of fleeting moments in history the Kushan coins from the Buddhist reliquaries bring back to life people from various cultures that were once unified under the umbrella of Buddhist cult, the true nature of which is readily available in visual art. The togate image of Buddha inscribed BOΔΔO in Greek on one side, and bearded Kushan king Kanishka I (ca. 78-115 CE) the “Great Kushan King of Kings, Son of God” on the other side displays a high level of fusion. Similar to the Roman emperors Kanishka holds a lance and offers a sacrifice at a fire altar. A Roman general’s cape pinned to his chest and a broad two-edged sword strapped to his belt, he wears Central Asian pants and boots.32 In Hindu mythology, Mercury worshiped as Budh is Saumya, the son of the Moon. Also, in popular culture “Bhoot” overlying “Budh” denotes ghost or spirit of the dead. BOΔΔO coin of Kanishka I (ca.78-115CE), Gold Stater, Ø 2.1 cm, Wt.16.98 gm, Ahim Posh Tepe Stupa 2, Afghanistan, 2nd century CE, London: The British Museum (1882.IOC.289) 32 0.36 Zeus’ eagle and Ganymede in a Phrygian cap, Roman Marble, 2nd century CE, Chiaramonti (Inv.1376) 0.37a Garuda and Nagini, Schist, Rhode Tope, Sanghao, Swat Valley, Pakistan, 2nd century CE New Delhi: National Museum of India (After Grunewedal) 0.37b Divine couple Garuda and Nagini, Schist, Gandhara, 2nd century CE (e-Auction) Egypt in October is an exhilarating experience on the Nile River swollen by summer rain rushing in torrents from Sudan represented by two fleet-footed deer goddesses. In October in the year, 130 Antinous cruising with his lover Emperor Hadrian mysteriously drowned in the Nile. Whispers of ritual self-sacrifice to save the emperor’s life soon turned into a legend that Antinous’ ghost arose to give oracles in Hadrian’s dreams. The cult identified strongly with Egyptian culture borrowed heavily from antiquity and adopted Zeus’ Aquila the Eagle constellation to represent Antinous in heaven. Antinous transformed into a powerful oracular god was worshiped as Apollo, Hermes, Silvanus, and Bacchus or Dionysus synthesized with Osiris worshiped as the night sun and shown as a crescent moon.33 In the land of pharaohs and pyramids, the fervor for resurrected Antinous was stirred by Horus, the youthful sun-god worshiped as a falcon. Horus being the son of Isis and Osiris explains the extensive use of Situla in the Buddhist cult. 33 Gil H. Renberg, Hadrian and the Oracles of Antinous (Sha Hadr 14.7); with an Appendic on the so-called Antinoeion at Hadrian’s Villa and Rome’s Monte Pincio Obelisk (Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, Vol. 55, 2010), pp. 159-198. 0.38a Eagles fed by a priest, Pakshi Theertham / Thirukazhukundram near Chennai, early 20th century Photo Edgar Thurston, 1906 (Ethnographic Notes in Southern India) 0.38b White-bellied Sea Eagle, Pazhaverkadu, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India Photo Birder Gnanaskandan Kesavabharathi GK, 20 September 2014 0.39 Eagle and Ascetic / Wise Pigeon in Romaka Jatakam, Sandstone frieze, Mathura, 2nd century CE Mathura Archaeological Museum (00-14) Tamil culture known for temple building is closer to Egypt than one would expect. Every day, from “time immemorial,” a pair of eagles came to receive food offering at a hilltop known as Pakshi Theertham and Thirukazhukundram near Chennai, the capital city of Tamil Nadu. The hallowed sanctuary reached by 565 rock-cut steps leads to a more recent Vedagiriswarar temple dedicated to Shiva. The site is filled with myths; once every twelve-years a conch sacred to Lakshmi and Vishnu glide upon the temple tank surrounded by worshipers. The only known anthropological record of a priest feeding the eagles at Thirukazhukundram is a 1906 photograph by Edgar Thurston (1855-1935), then the Superintendent of the Madras Government Museum (0.38a).34 In folklore, the white chested Egyptian vultures (Neophron percnopterus) alighted precisely at noon since “forever” – each day people gathered to witness this miracle. Gloomily, the old-world “Pharaoh’s chicken” ceased to appear at Thirukalukundram after the Indian Ocean earthquake and a devastating tsunami in 2004. The disappearance of Egyptian vulture is seen as a foreboding sign. Found from North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula to India, the Egyptian vulture is rarer than the white-bellied sea eagle on the Coromandel Coast (0.38b). Romaka Jatakam — The Jataka, No.277, Vol. II, tr. by W.H.D. Rouse, 1895 The garland bearers rife in Gandhara sculpture run across a coping stone from Mathura; on the whole, the blend of decorative swags and mythological scenes is characteristic of the Asiatic Roman sarcophagus. The Mathura style in sandstone is closer to Egypt than to Anatolia known for the workshops producing the garland sarcophagi in marble. In the allegoric frieze, two dashing deer rush across the rocks like the two cataracts of the Nile; the replenishing waterfalls in Upper 34 Tamil. Thiru (Reverent)+Kazhugu (Eagle)+Kundram (Mountain). Egypt adulated as fertility goddess Anuket and her twin were represented by deer, cowry shell, and bow and arrow. The sandstone slab breaks off at the eagle’s head; seated with waistband binding his fixed folded knees together, a sage chastely chin-chucks the allegoric eagle (0.39). Interpreting the meaning and context of an active and passive relationship in Greek society shown by a person holding the chin of another person on one hand in Greek pottery painting is far from straightforward. A panoramic view shows circular native shrines by the side of gorgeous trees. To the left, a youth standing next to a fire altar and a lidded situla leans on twin baskets shouldered on a pole. It is identical to the baskets holding curative herbs hung in a hermit’s hut in Bharhut’s Alambusa Jatakam medallion. In early Buddhist sculptures, consecrated local healers and non-Roman deities are effortlessly equated to Roman gods and interpreted as an aspect of their Hero. Consequently, the splendid youth with the medicine baskets embodies Apollo, the sage caressing an eagle on the broken edge is Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, a hero, and the son of Apollo. On the behest of Apollo, Asclepius was resurrected by Zeus shown as the eagle. This frieze captioned “Romaka Jatakam” has a dubious link to a faltering pigeon story: Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was king of Benares, a flock of pigeons frequented the cave-dwelling of a virtuous hermit in the Veḷuvana forest. After several years, the Bodhisattva pigeon noticed that a newcomer living in the cave had acquired a taste for pigeon curry. Warned of impending danger the pigeons fled from the fake recluse. Chastened by Bodhisattva, the imposter left the cave. The story narrated in the Hall of Truth categorizes the protagonists: Bodhisattva pigeon is Buddha, the fake recluse is Devadatta, and the virtuous hermit who first lived in the cave is Sariputta.35 Match Made in Heaven A unique sandstone block carved on both sides from Pali Khera near Mathura has a 40.64cm wide and 20.32 cm deep socket supported a stone vessel to receive wine oblation in a stupa complex. The commemorative monument reflects the custom of placing offering vessels in front of Greek temples. On one side a rotund man with escorts is seated with one leg tucked on a raised tomb vault. He is identified as Silenus by Carter.36 He holds an unusual tankard with a curved handle attached to the bottom and the rim of a flared cup. By his side, a bejeweled maiden in the guise of a Parthian princess holds a matching cup.37 As incongruous as it may seem, wine cups and drinking scenes are known as Bacchanal are accepted part of the Buddhist cult. The hieratic group sculpture in transcultural style describes the unusual layered dress of the divine maiden, she wears a short, long-sleeved blouse with ruffles over a skirt with lengthy ruffled hem (0.40a,b). On the rear of the block, she returns by the side of a boy standing next to a couple of wine vessels. The child makes 35 Romaka-Jataka, J.277, Vol. III, The Jataka or Stories of the Buddha's Former Births, Cowell, E. B. (ed.). Chalmers, Robert, W. H. D. Rouse, H. T. Francis, R. A. Neil, E. B. Cowell (trans.), 1895–1907 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. vol. II, Online) pp. 260-262. ‘6 vols.’ 36 Martha L. Carter, Dionysiac Aspects of Kushan Art (Ars Orientalis, Vol. 7, 1968) pp.121-122 ‘pp.121-146. Carter approves Greco-Roman influences observed by Colonel R. L. Stacy, Foucher, Rowland, and Rosenfield. 37 Chantal Fabregues, The Indo-Parthian Beginnings of Gandharn Sculpture (Bulletin of the Asia Institute, Vol. I, 1978) figs 1-4. Isao Kurita, Gandharan Art II (The World of the Buddha, Vol. II, 2003) p. 194, no. 564. contact with the same man seated on the stupa mound, A boy standing on the other side of the grave manifests heavenly Gemini twins often seen in Gandhara sculpture. The resurrected man’s convivial crown and near-nudity denote transcendence and not drunken revelry. He is lifted by the goddess of the underworld and a tall male, whose “Heroic nudity” and the army commander’s cape held by brooch identify Mercury the psychopomp (0.40c). Early Greco-Buddhist sculpture in the extremely evolved mortuary cult demonstrates schematized connectivity between design, purpose, and definitive goal. The three-dimensional high relief set against the Tree of Life relates to another stunning two-sided sculptured support for a ritual vessel from Mathura known as “Vasantasena” in the National Museum of India. The allegoric scenes typically hooked to a fictional narrative fall into a fanciful and least understood stereotypes. It seems far-fetched to classify the Kushan period nude female on bent knee, the foremost in a group of allegoric figures, as intoxicated Ujjayini courtesan named Vasantasena in a famous Sanskrit play Mrcchakatika (The Little Clay Cart) by poet Kalidas of later Gupta period.38 Religion is about revelation and at the core of religious imagination is death. At the turn of the new era, the subcontinent is like the Isle of the Blessed inhabited by the heroes of Greek and Roman mythology enjoying a winterless paradise. The map-dot-location of an art-work might be in one place, but the influences come from diverse directions. The goddess in billowy dress shown on both sides of Pali Khera plinth could be Celtic goddess Rosmerta balancing solar Lugus assimilated as an aspect of Mercury by Romans. Julius Caesar noticed that Mercury was the most popular deity in Britain and Gaul.39 Worshiped as the inventor of all the arts, including enchantment, Mercury was given the paludamentum that transmutes army commander’s cape into magician’s mantle. It is reasonable to compare the rotund man holding a jug of wine to Silenus known for his sexual drive, which is equated to fertility in the Buddhist cult. Silenus may have become a Latin term of abuse, in Plautus’ comedy play Rudens / The Rope (254-184 BCE), Labrax is a treacherous pimp or leno described as “...a pot-bellied old Silenus, bald head, beefy, bushy eyebrows, scowling, twister, god-forsaken criminal.” In the Roman syncretism Romans adopted local deities as manifestations of their gods; Celtic deity Belenus was equated with Apollo, in turn, comparable to Buddha. At this point, it is important to keep in focus that a group of Celts consecrate a stupa monument on the northern gateway of Sanchi stupa, which also displays stunning procession of the Celtic goddess Epona on horseback.40 Due to his association with wealth and prosperity in commerce, Mercury is linked to rotund Kubera, the regent of the North. As the keeper of boundaries Hermes, and Mercury to the Romans, form a bridge between the upper and lower worlds; and assigned to escort the dead he 38 Arputharani Sengupta, Buddhist Art and Culture: Symbols & Significance (New Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, Vol. II, 2013) p.180-182, fig.9.1a, b. ‘2 vols.’ 39 De Bello Gallico 6.17. According to 1st-century Roman writer Tacitus, Mercury was identified with Wotan, the chief god of the Germanic peoples (Germania 9). 40 Arputharani Sengupta, Buddhist Voyagers Dodging Death, In: Epic Dimensions in Buddhist Art (New Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, 2021) fig.7.13. holds money bag in Gandhara sculpture, to pay the ferryman who took the dead across the River Styx to Hades. 0.40a-c Bacchanal reveler, Two-sided sandstone sculpture, Pali Khera, Mathura Museum, 2nd century CE Rev: Satiated man flanked by celestial twins is lifted by a goddess and nude Hermes draped in a cape Mathura Archaeological Museum (00-C-2) Discovered by Colonel R. L. Stacy, 1836 0.41 Fasting Buddha, Schist, Gandhara, 2nd-3rd century CE, Alain R. Truong (e-Auction) The skin-and-bone “ghastly Bhoot” is a veritable ghost of the dead from the shadows – sky and stars in the eyes gaze out from the skull of cadaverous “Fasting Buddha” with hollowed-out stomach customarily received homage. The rite of worship shown on the pedestal usually exhibit a cup of immortality, eternal flame, or incense burner. On the seat of famished Buddha, always shown with a prickly beard and honorific stole, six men holding cup partake in a ritual on either side of an offering table; the pot of Amrit on the draped altar linked to goddess Lakshmi leads to instant renewal (0.41). In addition to obscure origins, the indeterminate role of Buddhist figures and the flexibility with which they could be interpreted, provide insights into how Greco-Romans thought about life and death in changing times. There is manifold interconnectedness to explain the hidden meaning. The uncommon rippling cloth breaching severity of the shriveled image drained of all material comforts is the twist. The S-shaped parallel grooves on the strip covering the laps might be simply overlooked as a touch of extravagance characteristic of Buddhist art.41 But the curved parallel grooves that fan out evenly on the drawn-out thighs are ‘strigillated’ grooves on a curved caisson, which is a strigil sarcophagus. The Greco-Buddhist cult is not a stranger to the Roman sarcophagi, during a vigil on the night before the funeral mourner mill around the stately coffin in “Parinirvana of Buddha” scenes rampant in Gandhara.42 41 Anne Hollander, The Fabric of Vision: The Role of Drapery in Art (The Georgia Review, Vol. 29, No. 2, Summer 1975) pp. 414-465 (JSTOR 41397188) 42 Janet Huskinson, Roman Strigillated Sarcophagi: Art and Social History (Published to Oxford Scholarship Online, 2015 The strigil used by the Roman bathers to scrape off all the dirt and rubbed oil leave curved striations on the naked body. The economic and simple aesthetics of strigil sarcophagi signifying purity of body and soul was retained by non-elite Romans and Greek freedmen from the midsecond century until the decline of Rome. The side usually includes portrait busts, symbols such as goblet, and scenes from the life of the deceased. This parallels the plinth showing different ritual scenes on which the Buddha is seated. The “Fasting Buddha” commissioned by a common man conveys devout beliefs at the roots of his origins. The gut-wrenching mummified figure reveals ritual purity, extreme austerity, belief in the immortality of the soul, Nirvana, and life after death. The death-related libation plates less than 12 cm in diameter recap austere Fasting Buddha recharged by rituals.43 This type of inexpensive chlorite plates favored by the needy suggest a strong sense of unity and commonality bonded beyond death. 0.42 Winged superman in the abode of gods, Schist, H. 38.1 cm, Gandhara, 2nd-3rd century CE Cleveland Museum of Art (2011.136) Gift of Maxeen and John Flower honoring Stanislaw Czuma 0.43 Birth of Buddha, Schist, Swat Valley, Gandhara, 2nd century CE Greco-Buddhist funerary cult uniting diverse groups of people seeking a place in heaven in a far-off land reflects a utopian society of the righteous otherwise known as Dharma. Through a crack in time, the Buddhas dart across geography to pull the events in the eastern Mediterranean that seal the human beings together to maintain a co-operative system and cooperative ethic in the theocratic rule of the Kushan kingdom. As Bono U2 sings in Wise Blood (Exit 2919) — “Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never be there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.” The revered Fasting Buddha is a Jivanmukta, someone who has gained infinite divine power and knowledge of spiritual self-realization. As a result, the gilded togate Buddha at the peak of extravagance is also a Jivanmukta representing someone in his subtle form; the eternal being appearing beyond life and death in the Advaita Vedanta philosophy. The winged deified superman in the frontal memorial sculpture is called Titan and Atlas. The “sky-clad” transfigured man exposed as Hercules by the lion cape knotted on his chest is one amongst a variety of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas installed by the Hero cult. The naked human body with deliberately exposed penis in an icon of worship is about establishing male sexuality 43 Arputharani Sengupta, Epic Dimensions in Buddhist Art (New Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, 2021) fig.1.18. and fertility (0.42). Though stripped of clothing, what Greco-Buddhist cult develops in this unfolding is not austerity but ideas about eternal splendor and sensuous enjoyment. Anthropologists carefully consider the role of dress in the expression of cultural identities. Buddhist funerary art consistently shows Roman dress or combinations of Roman and indigenous garments. Especially clothing has an important part to play in the narrative reliefs, this intriguing phenomenon is pronounced in the Birth of Buddha vignette showing three women assisting Maya Devi. One of them is chosen to wear Shalwar and Kameez – a long-sleeved short tunic over baggy pantaloons native to Turkic-Parthian females, while two others wear long Greco-Roman tunic and flowing mantle girdled like a sari. The second layer of the drape drawn between the legs and tucked behind like traditional Marathi sari leaves the legs of Maya Devi to move freely. The courtesan priestess perfuming the Mystery play seems to be in a rush run to ascend heaven directly after the incredible delivery (0.43). Maya meaning magic points to Maia, the Roman goddess of magic and mother of Mercury. At birth, the full-grown miraculous child took the first seven steps to declare his supreme status on heaven and earth. The dynamic movement and dress behavior of mixing the pan-regional ensemble are contextual to funerary art.44 It suggests that the preoccupation with appearance is related to function and role in rituals. In the case of epiphany of Buddha, clothing classifying race also takes on the purpose of personification – Shalwar Kameez point to Anahita and Greco-Roman costume identify Demeter, Persephone, or Isis recognized by the Situla used as a prop. Priest and Priestess The Asiatic Greek trend of the prosthesis, or laying out of the dead on a furnished couch with a pillow is a way-out method to convey the attainment of Nirvana. While cremation was the norm the suggestion of inhumation comes from the dead body, usually shown as a couple, lounging as though in their boudoir on the lid of Etruscan and Roman sarcophagi. Everything that is raised must converge, mortuary traits are prismed through the Dampati in the male-oriented Buddhist cult. The comely consort providing eternal bliss appears to be a goddess possibly personified by a priestess performing cult rituals. Graphic mythological imagery is shorthand for an ideology. There are ‘conflicts and contradictions’ in the nude honorific portraiture in early Greco-Buddhist cult the same as the statuary in the Late Republican Rome observed by Paul Zonker in his seminal work The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus.45 Greco-Buddhist art is breathtaking in its sweep; courage, good faith, and devotion contrast with mindless indulgence and sycophancy. The most luxurious is Dionysus Sardanapalus as Bacchus portrays as a nude elderly man with a long beard cradling a nude Maenad in a pop-up wedding arbor of vine creepers with bunches of grapes (0.44). The nude maiden in the aedicule leans on the mature Bacchus holding a cup of wine in his Ursula Rothe, The “Third Way”: Treveran Women’s Dress and the “Gallic Ensemble” (American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 116, No. 2 (April 2012), pp. 235-252. 45 Tom Stevenson, The 'Problem' with Nude Honorific Statuary and Portraits in Late Republican and Augustan Rome (Greece & Rome, 2, Cambridge University Press. 45 (1): 45–69 [JSTOR 643207] 44 raised right hand swathed with heavy himation. The impractical veil drawn across the lower limbs of the supple female is being tugged by a partly cracked kneeling Silenus. 0.44 Dionysus Sardanapalus and Mad Maenad vine arbor, Schist, Gandhara, 2nd century CE (e-Auction) 0.45Bacchus and Ariadne – Dionysian Mystery Doorjamb, Schist, Gandhara, 2nd century CE Boston: Museum of Fine Arts (after Benjamin Rowland) The arts of Greece and the wealth of Roman Asia join together to furnish the extraordinary funerary monuments in the virgin land suddenly thrust into a fermenting world.46 The succession theme song of the arched vine arbor is an ornate figurative vine-scroll door jamb from Gandhara housed in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The series of five cameos enclosed by interlaced vine tendril evokes the Four Seasons –Autumn, the Triumph of Selinus, Bacchus, Ariadne, and one of their two sons linked to grapes and wine. The vertical ascent of the twined vine leaves provoking the imagination about the delightful afterlife is illuminating. The conceptual connections pointing to the west are surely not imagined. The exquisitely carved details demonstrate how a global society renovates ancient cultures in South Asia destitute of any comparable tradition. The doorjamb does the balancing act between the vine scroll meander and torus molding decorated with flattened bad-and-reel, and dog-tooth. The overlapping triangular plates on the lower section could be laurel leaves sacred to Apollo, which typically stretched along the molding to divide horizontal reliefs in Gandhara. Also, the imbricate pattern adopts the curved spines of the pinecone consecrated to Bacchus. Throughout history, the perfect sequence of its sacred geometry has been the seat of the soul and enlightenment. 46 Benjamin Rowland, The Vine-Scroll in Gandhara (Artibus Asiae, Vol. 19, No. 3/4 (1956), pp. 353-361. The votive door jamb with figural medallions is unlikely a broken doorway to a GrecoRoman sanctuary in Gandhara. The euphoria of the mythological world evolves to reflect the times. The archer at the base is the far-shooting Apollo, Lord of the Silver Bow. The lush vegetal surge reaches the top where Bacchus drinks wine from a rhyton followed by Ariadne and Bacchus embracing in a vine arbor (0.45a). Midway, the figure carrying a basket of grapes could be one of the sons of Ariadne and Bacchus; Staphylus associated with grapes, or Oenopion personifying wine. He scrambles in the bower to fill his baskets with grapes, to be able to pour a libation of wine when he reached the crossroads (0.45). Wine and honey discovered by Bacchus are conspicuous in the fabled offerings noted in Buddhist art and literature. In the Greco-Roman society, the identity of the images is often amplified by the borrowing from other images, ranging from mythological to historical. Immediately above the divine archer at the bottom, a bearded man shouldering a male on a hierarchical scale might represent Zeus and Dionysus, the twice-born in Greek mythology. Or it could be fatherly Silenus called Papposilenus carrying Dionysus. Bearded Silenus carouses through the vineyard holding a thyrsus, a pinecone tipped pole. In front is a kind of traveling trunk or portable chest denoting wealth and prosperity. Kibôtos in Greek is a chest or coffer, and the name Cibotus (Κιβωτός – chest, coffer) appears on some coins of Apamea, which is conjectured to denote the wealth that was collected in this great emporium. On a Roman Republican coin from African mint Aeneas, the Trojan Hero carries his father Anchises on his shoulder and advances toward victory and the founding of Rome (0.45b).47 The piggy-back iconography is also consistent with Aeneas conveying his father to a new beginning. All the same, the high-level of craftsmanship suggests that the Hellenistic doorjamb could be ascribed to an established workshop in the Eastern Mediterranean. The scenes display cogitation on the aspects of the sacred and agree with the winemaking in Roman mosaic and on the tomb walls: Scenes of grape harvesting, wine pressing by foot, and wine stored in jars in the tomb painting provide a perpetual pick-me-up to scribe Nakht in Thebes, who lived on as the astronomer priest of Amun in the great beyond.48The orchestrated melodies in the vine scrolls would have been commissioned by a cultured patron, possibly a poet. It begins with a mystic link between Dionysus and Apollo articulated in the sacred hymns known as Dionusites.49 It praises Apollo as the true savior of Dionysus: Bacchus formed in the magic mirror pursued the mirage and became dispersed into all particles of light. As a deity of purification and healing Apollo collected him and made him whole. The “Praise and Persuasion in Greek Hymns” inevitably find a place in the Asiatic sarcophagi and the Buddhist stupa sculpture in Gandhara.50 The Theory of Style 47 African mint, 47–46 BC, Rv. CAESAR, Aeneas, advancing to the left, holding the palladium in his hand, and Anchises on shoulder, cf. M.H. Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, Cambridge 1974, nr 458-1. 48 Tomb TT52, North Side of the West Wall of Nakht's Offering Chapel. Nakht during the reign of Thutmose IV, Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt, 15th century BCE. 49 Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1531), Three Books of Occult Philosophy or Magic, Book II (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017) p. 428. @ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/agrippa-nettesheim/ 50 Michael Koortbojian, Myth, Meaning, and Memory on Roman Sarcophagi (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft4199n900/ At this point the Theory of Style proposed by Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968) gives a plan — first, consider the subject matter and iconography; next, take a deeper look at the cultural and iconographic knowledge that imparts meaning. Then, iconology takes into account cultural, social, and technical history into the understanding of the work of art as the product of a historical environment and not as an isolated incident. Art historical consideration of all these aspects will fittingly find the answer to the puzzling question: “What does it all mean?” For instance, the layout of the Great Stupa dominating Mohenjo-Daro is similar to various stupa complexes, which is a square; the building clusters arranged on right angles follow the typical Greek orthogonal grid plan. The alleged Bronze Age site is famous for its waterproof Great Bath, standardized brick buildings, wells, and corbel arch underground drains. The paved main thoroughfare designed for cart traffic and aligned north and south is similar to Cardo Maximus, the main road in all Roman styled cities. Synchronicity is God’s Message in a Bottle. The iconic Bearded Priest-King of MohenjoDaro is shaped like the famous Roman Azara Herm of Alexander the Great copied from a Greek original by Lysippus dated to 330 BCE. His off-shoulder robe with trilobite pattern feigns the leopard skin worn by Horus as Horendotes performing priestly rituals to resurrect his father Osiris. The Bearded Priest more famous than the wears an armband similar to the Bodhisattvas, and the matching solar headband fluttering down his back is a Greek diadem denoting divinity and royal dignity (0.46). The circular ring tied to his forehead resembles the seven-star disc on the headband of the priests of Serapis in the Roman world. The sacred number-7 recurs in Buddhist, Mithraic, Osirian, and Orphic Mystery closely related to Bacchus linked to primal forces in nature. In ancient Egypt there were seven heavenly cows and seven paths to heaven; Horus led his father Osiris through seven halls of the underworld. The number seven central to the cult of Mithra meant that the soul rose to paradise through seven planetary spheres. The eighth step in the “The Eightfold Path” in Mithraism, as in Buddhism, is the attainment of the chalice of eternal life. Osiris prevailed as Serapis in Ptolemaic Egypt, and continued to increase in popularity during the Roman Empire; the priests consecrated to Serapis proliferated, as did the priests and priestesses of Isis. In Roman syncretism, Serapis often substituted by Bacchus consorts with Isis-Venus and Demeter in the temples outside Egypt. A Garland Holder depicts a superbly attired elderly bearded man couched in lofty acanthus scroll. Wearing priestly stole and headband he holds out in both hands floral tribute piled up like pinecones (0.47). The vertical volute presumed to be an architectural element to hang a wreath on a domical stupa is a portable L-shaped prop with a stable base placed on a plinth. The “Garland Holder” uniting winged divinities in the vertical acanthus volute is a type of Greco-Roman ex-votos in Gandhara. Designed to serve as portable altars they stood in a stupa sanctuary. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the winged goddess Garland Holder is a distinctive counterpart to Zeus-Serapis’ priest.51Acanthus surge into a tall volute to support Isis-VenusCeleste leaning like a figurehead on the prow of a ship. With a hand raised in protection, she holds 51 Kurt Behrendt, The Art of Gandhara in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, MET, 2007) cat. nos. 24, 25. a ball of rolled garland.52 The goddess wears Alexandrian cross-chain and a long string of pearls looped between her breasts. A seven-petal rosette on the center boss of her headband corresponds to the sevenrayed star signifying Serapis. The figure carved in minute detail seems gold-tooled by a skilled jeweler-sculptor. She wears a neckband and disc earring engraved with concentric circles; ripples of gold fillets suspended from her high waistband are attached to a girdle strung with three rows of beads. The emblematic Garland Holder is in reality a front-facing icon of worship doubling as an intimate mortuary altar in the reliquary stupa complex. The winged goddess volute formerly in Eilenberg’s collection belongs to a unique type of autonomous vertical altars probably produced by the same workshop in the Eastern Mediterranean The Eilenberg Garland Holder is similar to the goddess couched in the anterior acanthus capital that served as an offering table cum altar in the stupa complex at Butkara (0.48). She holds a reliquary casket and her other hand raised in Abaya offers protection. The memorial acanthus altar in mainstream Gandhara would have been installed in a mortuary chapel. Some of the memorial capitals enshrine the bust of a departed reverently holding both hands together. Indo-Greek votive coins have been found under the pseudo-Indo-Corinthian capitals that might incorporate a seated Buddha, celestial musicians, or Helios riding quadriga to signify apotheosis. The Greco-Buddhist composite capitals carved in schist correspond to the marble mortuary altars in Aï Khanum. The outstanding workmanship of the Corinthian capitals, the rarity, and the high quality of marble points to the quarries of Göktepe near coastal Caria in modern-day Turkey. Antinous, a new god, and Hero from Anatolia were accepted as the gift of the Nile to all humanity. Like Osiris, he mysteriously emerged from the watery grave with his cascade of short comma curls intact. An archaic Antinous Herm from Alexandria is one of the random 0.46 The Bearded Priest-King, Steatite, H.17.5 cm, DK Area in Mohenjo-Daro, Proto-historic period Karachi: National Museum of Pakistan (DK 1909) 0.47 Dionysus, Winged celestial garland holder, Schist, 27 x 24 cm, Gandhara, 1st-2nd century CE Metropolitan Museum of Art (2001.736) Friends of Asian Art Gifts, Honoring Douglas Dillon 0.48 Acanthus memorial altar, Schist, Butkara, 2nd century CE, Peshawar Museum, Pakistan 0.49 Antinous Herm, H.6.35 cm, Begram, 2nd century CE, Kabul Museum (Huntington Archive, 1970) 52 Arputharani Sengupta, Buddhist Jewels in Mortuary Cult: Magic Symbols (New Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, Vol.1, 2019) p.73, fig.2.17. ‘2 vols.’ Winged Goddess Garland Holder, Schist, H. 24.9 cm, Gandhara, mid–1st century CE, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art (1987.142.213) Gift of Samuel Eilenberg. ritual objects found in the Kushan Begram hoard. The bronze Greek Herm shaped like a Canopus jar with four sprigs around its mouth is an altar-top piece that fits into the palm of your hand. From beyond the grave, the diademed head of Antinous might have whispered prophesies from the top of his head (0.49). Vout cites a coin from Tarsos that depicts Antinous as Dionysus-Osiris. In the corpus of a mind-boggling number of Antinous portraits, classifying the Canopus portrait type of Antinous Herm is inferred by its resemblance to the expression and the brawny position of the portrait head of Antinous with identifying inscription.53 Aside from such divergent iconography as Egypt, a leeway has to be given to the problem of regional diversity and local predilections. However, despite provincial preferences, the process of making ‘replicas’ of prominent portraiture had a centrally defined three-dimensional model that was usually consulted across the Roman Empire. Comparing features and demeanor in a Typological study shows that there is a similar central regulatory system in Buddhist mortuary art.54 In context with basic conformity within regional diversity, a distinct central authority is evident regarding widespread common themes such as the Dream of Maya or the Birth of Buddha. Ans a likeness that is generically related, whether to Apollo type of Buddha, or bearded Zeus-Osiris type Hercules, demonstrates how regional variations happen in context with conformity to the making ‘replicas’ of typecast portraiture supplied by the global production centers. The skilled overseas workforce with centuries of experience catered to a rapid volume of the novel, high-end demand in the geographical confines of South Asia. A young male hero, such as Antonius like Bodhisattva or a forceful bearded “Hercules” is a part of the complex reflection that might involve sculptors’ confusion and mistranslation of form. At the same time, the viewing of unprecedented Buddhist art involves misunderstanding due to cultural estrangement. In all this, several portraits of bearded and diademed priests in Gandhara telltale thriving cult of Antinous as Dionysus-Osiris, including a system of consulting oracles, that sink into the familiar Casandra syndrome. The systematized Buddhist relics accomplish the prearranged function. For no perceivable purpose, the Greek bead-and-reel trimming introduced in early Buddhist sculpture and Indo-Greek coins is tucked into the two Acanthus Garland Holders in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The discreet string of bead-and-reel comprising disc beads alternating with cylindrical ones is an enigmatic sigil known in architectural molding, sculpture, and numismatics. Religious symbols depicted alone or together with other signs reinvent and preserve life. Acanthus (Acanthaceae) is a medicinal herb for cure ranging from snake bite to skin diseases. In Greek mythology Acanthus linked to the metamorphosis of Acantha and the healing gift of Apollo indicate resurrection. In the 53 Caroline Vout, Antinous, Archaeology and History (The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 95, 2005) pp.87, 88, fig.2 and pl. II (after de Ridder 1906, pls.15,16) ‘pp. 80-96’ (JSTOR 20066818) 54 Julia Shaw, Buddhist and non-Buddhist mortuary traditions in ancient India: Stupas, Relics, and the Archaeological Landscape, In: Death Rituals, Social Order and the Archaeology of Immortality in the Ancient World “Death Shall Have No Dominion”, (eds.) Colin Renfrew, Michael J. Boyd, Iain Morley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015) pp 382-403. Plant Symbolism, acanthus anticipates life to be cyclical, and advocate life emerging from the grave in ancient Greek and Etruscan art. Acanthus called honeysuckle appears on scores of Buddhist cult objects, most memorably on the abacus of early pillar monuments, on Bodhgaya Vajra Asana and the impressive four-sided Pataliputra Altar in the Patna Museum. The acanthus scrolls on the curved volute accentuate the perpendicular altarpieces with winged divinities. The motif is compressed on a quartered circular field of polished sandstone discs and rings carved with the precision of a gem cutter. The lathe-turned ex-votos measuring about 4 to 6 cm in diameter are rare in Gandhara but prolific in North India. The model for this brilliant style is probably Greek seals of the early Helladic phase. The scaffolding of signs is incorrigible in Buddhist art. Acanthus known as honeysuckle on the quadrants of a lustrous ring-stone alternates with an archaic goddess arising on the sliding threshold to receive libation in Buddhist funerary rituals. The unique ring-stone talisman from Taxila has a smooth raised demilune frame around a ring of raised pyramids between protective plaited cable (0.50). Another necromantic discstone from Eilenberg’s collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1987.142.55) has quadripartite acanthus scrolls around a sunken disc that served as a minute libation plate. A Kushan-Sasanian silver figure from Siberia represents a nude goddess or a shamanic priestess perform the spirit dance by tossing her airborne scarf arched like the vault of heaven (0.51). Her billowing mantle is like the nimbus veil of Isis Pharia recognized as Venus Celeste leading a Roman biga in a pageant on the sandstone gateway to Sanchi Stupa I.55 The reaching for the sky stance is consistent with the Nagin soaring heavenward with her turbaned Eagleman. They puff-up like the windy cloud excited to meet the sun on two stele from Pakistan now in the National Museum of Japan and the Victoria and Albert Museum (0.52a,b). 0.50 Acanthus ring-stone, Ø 5.9 cm, Taxila, 1st century CE, Lent by Samuel Eilenberg, New York MET 0.51 Spirit dancer, Silver, H.5.7cm, Kushan-Sasanian figurine found in Siberia, 2nd-4th century CE 0.52a Jataka Tale of Queen Kakati, Schist, H.53cm, from Peshawar region, Pakistan, 2nd century CE Tokyo: National Museum of Japan 0.52b Garuda abducting Queen Kakati, Schist, Gandhara, 2nd century CE London: Victoria and Albert Museum (IS.5-1973) Predicting the Past 55 Arputharani Sengupta, Buddhist Voyagers Dodging Death, In: Epic Dimensions in Buddhist Art (New Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, 2021) fig.7.15. A man undertakes Great Departure from life but mysteriously returns with transplanted head and wings to cohabit with his sexy consort frozen in time. Or, a turbaned conjurer’s grand feat of transforming into an Eagleman goes caput, he is unable to revert to his former self. The stage assistant clings to her paramour; letting go of the Grand Master is not an option, anytime he will transform into real life in real-time. The enthralled audience installs petrified versions of this incredible event in several mortuary shrines with a hope that someday the couple would become flesh and blood. They truly do. Postmortem healing. It is the greatest science nonfiction ever. The goddesses of the underworld conceived in the subterranean cave mansions liberate the dead from the land of eternal darkness. The departed thus attain immense radiance and eternal life as decreed by Amitabha. Ceremonial dances and trance performances generally combined with sacred forms of shamanic dance-drama. The courtesan dancer in ritual dance-drama performances provides the model for the new Kushan period goddesses generally known as Yakshi. Eagle and Nagin make the perfect duo in the tableau; Nagin gathers the wind under the eagle’s wings and metaphorically fuses into a winged cobra-goddess. The roots of ophidian symbolism are none other than Wadjet as Uraeus lift the sun disc on the head of immortal Pharaohs. The supernatural Eagle and Nagin give a prophetic performance of a modern dance that could be reinterpreted in many lights, the soul undergoing a metamorphosis in the female creative force; thus, a sanctified maiden must dance till death for spring to begin. The “sacred feminine” in the realm of the afterlife offers an invaluable “divine female perspective” – each version of the mystic icon celebrates the celestial couple moves through primal rituals toward a sexual climax. A voluptuous female eagerly lifted off the earth by a heroic male represented as an eagle rise through the oculus on the dome of heaven to highlight the erotic and nurturant significance of the fertile female valued in magic and cult rituals. The anthropomorphized eagle suggests that a man performing in the Mystery play has donned a mask. An 8th-century wingless statue of Garuda called Karura in Kofukuji Temple of Nara in Japan is a historic evidence of the Garuda masked medium valued in the Buddhist tradition (0.53). The ritual “Naga-Gurulu (Garuda) Raksha” masked dance is performed for protection (Raksha) in Sri Lanka. The hieratic form proposes that sculptors routinely reproduced performers in the Mystery plays. Several key scenes, such as the “Dream of Maya” and the “Rebirth of Buddha” could be facsimiles of ritual enactments petrified for perpetuity for magical purposes. Even the exhausted dancers and musicians in the typical “Renunciation” tableaus set in a palace boudoir is an important clue. Time is not linear there as we understand it. Everything was happening all at once instead of in sequential order. Time adjourned, dreamlike visions wrap around on itself like a Swiss-roll, one end touching the other end. There was no future or past. There was only now. Nagin identified as the cobra is Nagakanya meaning virgin cobra goddess. This might have resulted from a natural evolution of Egyptian religion in which Isis is the protective cobra goddess. The immaculate conception of falcon god Horus by Isis makes her the original virgin cobra goddess. Standing on an altar pedestal to signify the unity of heaven and earth, the winged Garuda catches a fluttering ribbon in his beak and holds the hips of the divine dancer. The graceful Nagin stands with crossed legs, balancing her weight on the toes of her right foot. In a choreographed regal pose, her left hand is placed on her hip while her right arm is raised to the right shoulder of the magnificent bird-man. The mantle draped over her shoulder offsets a close-fitting chiton and girdled himation wrapped around her waist. She is amply ornamented, from the crown of the wreath to the anklets on her feet. She leans her head against Garuda towering above her, and with fluid movement sways with the turbaned raptor sporting a topknot. Together, the keepers of secret power provide safety to the devotee (0.54). The size and material make the enigmatic icon more tactile, thus allowing the interaction between the altarpiece and the worshipper from one of distant awe and adoration to a more intimate encounter. 0.53 Historical image of Garuda or Karura masked statue, Kofukuji Temple, Nara, Japan, 8th century CE 0.54 Garuda and Nagini, Schist, 17.5x10x5cm, Gandhara, 2nd century CE Galerie Golconda (1483) e-Auction 0.55 Courtesan dancer, Collection Amory (Kramrisch 1975, 251) 0.56 Garuda abducting Queen Kakati, Schist, Rhode Tope, Sanghao, Gandhara, 2nd century CE Photo M. Serrot, 1883, British Library Online Gallery 0.57 Naga-Gurulu Raksha Performance: Kandyan masked dance-drama of Sri Lanka Planet Venus sways both Lakshmi and Isis-Venus. Even in Bharhut the trans-Asian goddess modeled after Hellenistic Aphrodite holds mirror and fiddles her curls with the comb inside the divine harmony and symmetry attained by a lotus medallion. In Gandhara, a festooned figurine of a tinkle toed dancer posing cross-legged on the lotus pedestal manifests goddess Lakshmi (0.55). A Nagin and Garuda pair from Peshawar district repeats the posture of the clawed protective hands cupping the swinging female’s hip thrust out in a provocative angle. Her amazing change of attire shows a Turkic costume; the dancer wearing the usual crown of floral wreath sports a long-sleeved short kameez over baggy pantaloons while stockings cover her bare feet. Her costume and carriage link her with other females in the Birth of Buddha vignette (0.56). The image is quite contrary to what is considered Buddhist; the eagle lifts a sexy woman to break through the frontiers of theological traditions (0.43). And, there is an unspoken connection with other ex-votos familiar in Buddhist art. With scarf swirling and her bosom heaving, she wields her arms to embrace and stroke her adoring aviaryan hulk — this signature movement had outlived the Gandhara phase to take a life of its own in the Bollywood films and in the bulb-and-boss-blaring entertainment tents where the current nautch girls, trans-women, and Bacha-Bazi or “boy-play” offer virtual sexual gratification in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Here the moral compass might be murky, but memory ingrained from the way back is adept at figuring out which way the wind is blowing. The frontier female eunuch’s blatant display of sexual desire for the eagle-man is now the “Hot New Dance of Miss Mardan” in YouTube 2020. The captivating show models all the liberated women and transwomen chronicled in Buddhist art. 0.58a Naga Raksha Mask, Polychrome Wood, Kandy, Sri Lanka, 20th century CE 0.58b Naga-Gurulu Raksha Dance Mask, Polychrome Wood, 60 x 85cm, Sri Lanka, c.1920 Credit: R. Manukulasooriya, Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka & Michael Backman Ltd, London, 2005 Masquerades in religious plays interpret metamorphosis and the mythological ability of human beings to shapeshift into animals. To understand one thing is to understand the other. Ethnographic evidence relating to the “Naga Raksha” and “Gurulu Raksha” masked dance in Buddhist secret rites reveal an altered state of trance and shamans. For the first time in a long time, a breakthrough as prosaic as YouTube shows Nagakanya dive into Garuda (Gurulu) in a ritual dance fostered in Sri Lanka. The traditional Kandyan Naga-Gurulu Raksha dance meant to dispel demon death magically destroys Mara in the bastion of the Indian Ocean (0.57). The inaccessible secret rites entirely lost in the crumbled Buddhist necropolises thrives on stage recitals. To understand the state of one thing, understand the state of another. Understand Everything. It begins with the solo performance of Garuda (Gurulu), the energy crackles when Nagin joins Garuda soaring at the back with hands hovering close to her hip. In the buildup, Nagakanya spins like a top by twirling her waist in an unstoppable whirlwind. The spellbound viewer’s jaw hit the floor; in a trance, the attenuated energy leaves the stage at the end. Behind the façade of the masquerade, there are three types of masked dance in Sri Lanka. The folk dance of Sri Lanka called Kolam gives light-hearted comic relief. Next, the shadowy Kandyan dancers from the murky Buddhist sites in the heart of central Sri Lanka perform traditional shamanic healing and purification rituals. The “Devil Dancers” don the masks carved from local Kaduru timber (Nux vomica) to perform Sanni Yakuma healing rites to remove physical or psychological sickness — and exorcise (Tovil) demons that cause death. The historic maskcarving hub is the coastal town Ambalangoda located in the Southern Province of Galle in Sri Lanka. The eighteen masked ritual dances called Sanni Yakuma correspond to the eighteen ailments attributed to demons called Sanni. In Hindu tradition, the “Sanni” in Sinhalese practice is attributed to the negative effects of Saturn (Shani).56 The apotropaic Sri Lankan masks are key to exorcism performed in three steps: First, a specialist lures the demon with offerings; upon its arrival, the ‘healer’ extracts the demon from the ailing body; in conclusion, the demon is politely sent away by the last dance. Eighteen wooden masks depict eighteen demons in Sanni Yakuma rite, in which the chief of Sanni manifests in the healing Medicine Mask. The third type is the Kandyan Naga-Gurulu Raksha masked dance aimed to destroy death or Mara. The Kandyan Naga-Garuda Raksha ritual dance is from the spirit world. Here is the chance to glimpse the “other side” of the façade. Do we know for a fact what exists on the other side? 57In folklore Nagakanya (Cobra Virgin) and Garuda give protection. It is common to display a replica of apotropaic Naga-Garuda masks in Sri Lankan households (0.58a,b). Contrary to the enmity between the eagle and the serpent in wildlife, Nagakanya and Garuda masked dance is the ultimate magical ride to immortality. Ocean of time and space separate Naga-Garuda masked dance from the mythology of the cobra goddess Isis and the solar falcon god Horus battling the dark forces to protect and resurrect the dead. Instead of the flying ribbons in the Garuda and Nagini icons of Gandhara bunches of raffia tassels flow from the cobra-eagle masks. Raffia tassels toss about wildly when Nagini and Garuda dance to the drumbeat. First, the cobra goddess stirs up the storm; by the time Garuda joins her, the Nagini bent from the waist twirls in a circular motion to simulate the sinuous sway of the cobra. Then, the shock of remembrance stored in the gene takes hold; Garuda dancing behind Nagini tunes into the performance and holds her waist and imperceptibly lifts her. Garuda’s hand steadying her at the waist, with a spring to her toe Nagini like a ballerina could fly up in an arabesque.58 The Eagle and Queen Kakati Gandhara sculpture from antiquity transmutes a Buddhist sacramental ritual confirmed by the Naga-Gurulu Raksha dance. In a deeply meaningful way the eagle and the ophidian attributes of the maiden bow to Isis the winged cobra goddess , and her youthful son Horus, the falcon sun god of Egypt. The “Garuda and Nagin” museum label accepting the fabled Garuda as a prototype is ok. As a shining example of coincidental identification, it has to be noted that the woman in the sculpture is fully human, and the snake is absent in this type of icon. As an alternative, the pair is noted as “Eagle and Queen Kakati” from a Pali Jatakam. 59 From the start scholars sought to trace the otherworldly Garuda and Nagin to a legend. But the hastily applied label noting the Eagle as an infatuated abductor of Kakati in some way takes the metaphorical Jatakam casually. In Kakati-Jatakam the King of Benares habitually played a game of dice with the Eagle that craved Queen Kakati. The attraction was mutual. One day the Eagle king abducted Kakati to his distant Naga Island and cocooned his beloved in a bed of Eraka grass. They lived happily 56 Sanni (Shani) known as Maha Kola and Kala in Sri Lanka and Shany Dev or Maha Kala denoting Saturn worshiped on Saturday by Hindus. 57 At the beginning of all these manifestations, the Kushan period Mahavamsa records that Mahadharmaraksita or the Great Protector of Righteousness, a Greek (Pali. Yona) from Alexandria arrived with 30,000 monks for the consecration of the Great Stupa (Maha Thupa) at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka. 58 Naga Raksha Performance - Thinetha (III) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDetw-8vqmk 59 Kakati-Jataka, J. 327, Vol. III, H.T. Francis and R.A. Neil (tr.), 1897, pp.61,62. (sacred-texts.com) Sacred Texts together in the fragrant Simbal Grove. The Eagle continued to commute to play dice with the King of Banaras, now heartbroken by his loss. The astute court poet named Naṭakuvera looked at the Eagle with mounting doubt, and one day he hopped a ride and saw Queen Kakati by a lakeside bedded with the Eagle. Then, once again the minstrel hid himself in the Eagle’s plumage and returned to Banaras. When the time came to play dice, Naṭakuvera took his lute and going up to the gaming board stood before the players and gave utterance to a song he had composed to reveal the whereabouts of Queen Kakati. On hearing his secret love-nest spill out, the Eagle declared in the fourth stanza: Out upon the foolish blunder, What a booby I have been! Lovers best were kept asunder, Lo! I've served as go-between… And restored Queen Kakati to the King of Banaras. But not before exclaiming to Naṭakuvera: Sea and Kebuk Stream defying Did you reach my island home? Over Seven Oceans flying To the Simbal Grove didst come? [92] In reply Naṭakuvera uttered the third stanza: ’Twas through thee all space defying I was borne to Simbal grove, And o’er seas and rivers flying ’Twas through thee I found my love.60 Bodhisattva in a similar Sussondi-Jataka is a young Garuḍa from Naga Island then known as Seruma Island. He frequented the dice-chamber of Tamba the King of Benares. Sussondi the queen consort caught the eye of the Eagle and both craved for each other. The supernatural Eagle flew away with the Queen. A minstrel named Sagga commissioned to find the Queen met a group of merchants at Barukaccha ready to set sail for the Golden Land.61 He bargained his passage for a song but refused to play his lute claiming that the sound would attract leaping shoal of fish that would topple the boat. When he was forced to play, the sound of his lute strings stirred the fish into a frenzy, and a sea monster crashed into the ship and broke it to smithereens. Sagga survived by clinging to a plank, and the wind took him to a Banyan tree in the Seruma/Naga Island where the Supanna king lived with queen Sussondi.62 Whenever Supanna went to play dice with the king of Banaras, Sussondi took a pleasant stroll along the shore. Thus, the sultry-eyed Queen chanced upon the minstrel, embraced, and comforted him on her couch. Bathed, perfumed and clothed in heavenly vestment, and decorated with ornaments and flowers, Sagga feasted on delightful food and wine. The Queen took tender care of him and hid him whenever Supanna returned from his 60 Kakati-Jataka, J. 327, Vol. III, H.T. Francis and R.A. Neil (tr.), 1897, pp.61-62. Sacred Texts (sacred-texts.com) Sussondi-Jataka, J. 360, Vol. III, H.T. Francis and R.A. Neil (tr.), 1905, pp.124-125. Sacred Texts (sacredtexts.com) 62 Guitty Azarpay, A Jataka Tale on a Sasanian Silver Plate (Bulletin of the Asia Institute, New Series, Vol. 9 (1995), pp. 99-125 ‘pp. 99-125’ Endnote: 48 quotes K. R. Norman on Sussondi-Jataka. (JSTOR/24048818) 61 game of dice. After an ardent interlude for forty-five days the minstrel returned home when a ship on its way to Benares stopped at the island to gather food and water. The minstrel described to Supanna king his voyage to the Banyan Tree that stood surrounded by the crashing waves in the Seruma Island filled with the fragrance of Timiras. He revealed in the song that the Queen smelling of sandalwood took him in a “gentle embrace, as a mother her son.” Astonished Supanna realized that the Queen kept back in the secluded Seruma Island did not guarantee exclusive privileges. Regretfully, he restored the Queen to the King of Benares. This story narrated in the “House of Truth” enabled the hearer to attain the “fruit of stream-entry” understood as propitious rebirth and everlasting life. Consistently, the final resting place in the Hall of Truth is known as Set-Maat (st mꜣꜥt) or the Place of Truth in ancient Egyptian. It upholds the concepts of divine Law, truth, balance, order, and harmony. Maat, the winged goddess of Truth prevents the universe from returning to chaos; her chief role is Weighing of the Heart, a process by which all human beings aspire to reside with the gods in ancient Egyptian religion. Both Kakati-Jataka and Sussondi-Jataka inherit centuries-old Greek myth about Zeus’s eagle abducting Aegina to an island near Attica called Oenone, thereafter known by her name. In Ovid’s narrative, Zeus’ eagle is a great flame. Informed by Sisyphus the king of Corinth about a mighty bird bearing a maiden away to a nearby island, Aegina's father Asopus the River chased. But Zeus thunder-bolted and plunged him into the river. Aegina eventually gave birth to a son Aeacus, the king of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf. Zeus granted Aeacus prayer and populated his depleted kingdom with myrmidon warriors transformed from the ants on an oak tree. Again, a mythic inversion takes place in the travelers’ tale about the gold-digging ants along the inaccessible Indus River Valley of the Himalayan region. Buddhist literary language couched in double-enders may seem paradoxical, but in the dynamics of religious history, they disclose the inner meaning. At the core of Kakati-Jataka is the magical divine female (Maha Maya) redeeming and resurrecting humans into invincible beings, “splendid like the sun, beautiful in body and spirit” typified by Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. One may guess that metamorphosis takes place in an enchanted island like Sri Lanka and the Indian Subcontinent. Poetry leads to language-based art; the Buddhist genre has distinct tropes of its own. Benares tangled with the vision of “Ladder to Heaven” is a trope. In a figure of speech Supanna representing a spirit bird in heaven too is a trope. The figurative expressions and the embodied visual analogies provide comparative images in pictorial art. The minstrel Naṭakuvera in Banaras sings “Thoughts transmitted from her distant home moves my inmost soul,” and declares “I found my love in the “Simbal Grove” by crossing seas and rivers. He confirms that this space defying feat was possible only because he could fly with the Eagle King. The Eagle is the facilitator, the divine female is the ultimate goal to reach the heavenly abode. At no time the Eagle can assume that the Queen of Heaven is his sole possession. Jatakam is about the former lives of the Buddha. In this one, the king of Benares with his beloved queen-consort Kakati is the future Buddha, and therefore still a Bodhisattva.63 The futuristic and 63 John Guy, Indian Temple Sculpture (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2007) p.24. optimistic Greco-Buddhist cult is active in four spaces. The most interesting takeout of Eagle and Kakati artwork is the framework itself. There are clear hierarchies that operate the inclusive symbolic allegoric image. First, it has to be acknowledged that only the Bodhisattva is worthy of the crest jewel presenting Eagle and Nagin by the Simbali-Lake surrounded by fragrance. Kakati with two cohorts soars heavenward on the wings of the Eagle in an ex-voto from Gandhara (0.59). 0.59 Eagle turban emblem, Schist, H.17.7cm, 2nd century CE, Pvt. Collection (after Kurita & Azarpay) 0.60a Eagle and Kakati, Schist, H.20.59 cm, Sangao, Gandhara, 2nd-3rd century CE Pvt. Collection. Japan (after Kurita & Guitty Azarpay) 0.60b Eagle and Kakati, Schist, H.c.20 cm, Gandhara, 2nd-3rd century CE London: British Museum (1888.8.62) 0.60c Eagle and Kakati, Schist, H. 19.2cm, Gandhara, 2nd-3rd century CE, Peshawar Museum (497) Group Sculpture Garuda and Nagin icon reveals the ways that art must evolve and adapt to reflect the Rite of Spring in a world on the verge of lockdown. The eagle seems to bind with a winding rope; moments that are lived in the metaphorically active Eagle and Kakati icons provide the way to the next world. Each addition to this constantly changing collage figures offers a cognizant framework for a larger comparative study. Dharmapala’s drawn sword ready to protect the ascent to heaven is a clearsighted finale to a dazzling quartet (0.60a). This kind of naturalistic body with unexpected juxtapositions and visual rhymes is associate with Roman art. Naturalism heightened by the female figure caught in a moment is the focal point. has broken free of the block and has come to play and occupy space and time in a far more interesting way. They draw our gaze to the soaring but inert hieratic form of the Eagleman take off from the runway on which the reclining figure in the limelight seems to surrender to gigantic power. (0.60b). The stop-gap action of the levitating Queen of Heaven maps out an ever-evolving image in startlingly mercurial moods. The paired male and female acolytes introduce new roles to Yogi and Yogini before they dive deeper into Tantric Gilded Age. One of them holds a coiled rope in the Peshawar icon (0.60c). The sculptured collective actions in the summer nights are transplanted to a world away from where the sun never seems to set. Each person has his dice with death; the Greco-Buddhist mortuary cult sees it as a momentary setback and introduces countermeasures. The commissioned sculptor portrays his perception with furious energy and decodes ideas into real-life performances that are suddenly released from the stone. The frontal composition of Eagle and Kakati is a cultural landmark in Greco-Roman style comparable to an immersive re-envisioning of Ganymede and Zeus’s eagle on an Etruscan bronze mirror case. The eagle dominating tondo envelops Ganymede standup between two kneeling male figures representing the nude Bithynian youth in a serial action of rising from the ground to meet the eagle with open arms. His outstretched left-hand touch the waist of partially draped Venus; the goddess of love accosts the mighty eagle with a raised hand (0.61).64 In the New Monuments to the Buddha to be, a similar composition shows a distraught figure on the ground surrender to the redeeming Eagle in the Museum at the University of Missouri (0.62). Both apparels and ailment became tropes for new attitudes attuned to the flux of gender. Antinous is the image of Ganymede was a queer body celebrated by the Romans; Nagin / Yakshi draped in a female body effectively alters the myth of Hermaphroditus and surrounding body of artwork. 0.61 Ganymede and Eagle, Bronze mirror case, Etruscan, Ø 15.2 cm, Palestrina, 3rd century BCE?-CE London: British Museum (726) (after Guitty Azarpay) 0.62 Eagle and Kakati, Schist, H.20.7 cm, Gandhara, 2nd-3rd century CE Columbia, Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri (Gift of Samuel Eilenberg) 0.63 Eagle King, Kakati Abduction, Grey schist, H. 33.3 cm, Gandhara, 2nd century CE New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art (I980.325) Bernice Richard Gift The Greco-Buddhist group sculpture is a distinctive type; in some of the stele the bird-man and his bride are surrounded by other supporting actors. The chronographic formation of collectively experienced cultural identity is a small piece of information to understand the figures staging a performance. The Mystery play translated in the durable visual medium is as if to declare that determining intent is key to actualize goals. The group sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art succeeds rest of the action-packed icons from Gandhara. A male depicted twice in continuous motion holds rolled fiber rope in his hand and looks up at the Eagle. This kind of hieratic iconography has the sanctioned effect upon the eye given by someone adequately imitating the pose of a scribe in ancient Egypt. The coiled rope meant to measure the holdings of the Pharaoh could be twisted raffia or sisal hemp (Agave sisalana) (0.63). The scribe was the record keeper and overseer of the agricultural property of the Pharaoh. He was also a physician, skilled paintersculptor, and calligrapher. Usually, the erudite scribe as a wealthy and influential court official prepared impressive monuments for himself to enjoy a glorious afterlife. The portrayal of an 64 Guitty Azarpay, A Jataka Tale on a Sasanian Silver Plate (Bulletin of the Asia Institute, New Series, Vol. 9 (1995), p.114, fig.23. ‘pp. 99-125’ Egyptian scribe is tell-tale evidence of the all-pervading genius of Egypt in the Greco-Buddhist mortuary cult. The Hall of Truth doggedly asserted at the end of each Jatakam is a trope that links the recurrent motif to the Egyptian theme of the House of Eternity. Tantric Vajrayogini The Jataka or rebirth story is about the former lives of the Buddha. The Buddha in his previous life is the Bodhisattva born as royal solar Eagle besotted by Queen Kakati, the beloved consort of the King of Benares. Even after the abduction and the return of the Queen to her rightful place, The Eagle continues to roll the dice with the King of Benares, rather like the endless game of Senet played in the Egyptian tombs known as the House of Truth. If the Eagle is Buddha in his previous birth, his transit to heaven is safeguarded by Dharmapala, the fierce protector of Buddha with a drawn sword. The rope coiled around the group to reinforce protection. Curiosity drives the sorrowing figure’s complete submission on the plinth. It comes from a place of wanting to incite change for good. To share a vulnerability that might help herself and others. And to highlight something that might resonate with someone long after it was dedicated to the dead. The melodramatic iconography of the Eagleman lifting his passionate bride is “designed for wrangling” or ‘eristic' as Plato says in Greek.65The energized eagle and the divine femalecentered montage is a radical reinterpretation of mystical sexual union in Mahayana Buddhism. It anticipates the whirring prayer-wheel stirrup esoteric Vajra yogini proliferating in Tantric Buddhism. Maharaga or great passion is the essence of transcendent Vajrayogini intensely engaged for the well-being of all. In that sense, Vajrayogini can be traced back to the original revelation in the thundering Eagle and Kakati couple —the diamond at the core of Vajra-Mahayana, Mantrayana, or Tantrayana. A Yogini or Dakiṇi is Karmamudra or the “Seal of Action” substituted with Kamamudra or the “Seal of Passion” in the Vajrayana Buddhist technique of sexual practice with a physical or a visualized consort known as the Jnanamudra, the “Seal of Wisdom”. The Yoginis proliferate as accomplished female practitioners of sex for the good of all. Yoginis in Tantric Buddhism vastly expand the pantheon; Vajrayogini conflated with Ugra Tara is a precursor to the highly charged black Kali in union with her consort Bhairav Shiva in the graveyard. Buddhist and Hindu Tantric practice of Siddhas or Yogis can be traced to Sadhana, the revelation of unique mystical knowledge attained in life. Siddhas acquire supernatural power to shapeshift, levitate, fly, do extraterrestrial travel, be invisible, appear at two places simultaneously, increase or decrease in size, gain speed, obtain and accomplish anything, switch off passion, control others, enter another body or a place at will, paralyze or cause death, and revive the dead. The four female Siddhas among the famed 84 Mahasiddhas in India are the mad princess Laksminkara, the model wife Manibhadra, and Kanakhala and Mekhala among two headless younger and older sisters. Tibetan women on their spiritual path in Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism were inspired by the great female practitioners and practiced the Yogini Treasure or Ratna Lingpa to benefit countless beings. Many of them took a cinematic turn to acquire a rainbow body and attained enlightenment within a lifetime. The famed Gechak Nunnery in Nangchen eventually housed about 3,000 female Tantrics; Plato defines Euthydemus' and Dionysodorus' argumentation as 'eristic'. This literally means “designed for wrangling” ('eris' means 'strife' in Greek). 65 it was built by Tsangyang Gyatso on the instructions of the first Yogi Drubwang Tsoknyi (18281904) in the Drukpa Lineage. The legendary conflict between astral Garuda and Naga of the netherworld parallel mythical Garuda and Nagin. Garuda typically caught a Naga by the head. Naga swallowed large stones and wearied the mighty bird down, which let go from exhaustion. Karambiya the ascetic bared this secret and taught Garuda to seize by the tail and force Naga to disgorge and surrender.66 In the Jatakam framework, Nagin is an ardent female willing to bed with passersby, which turns up in a reproving discourse in Kunala-Jataka. In the rebirth story Kunala the Eagle is Prince Arjuna the Bodhisattva who always began his story with the words “I saw” — Seeing was one way to startle his audience. To create supernatural darkness, he sat there emitting two dark-blue rays from his hair. Or stirred up a storm and made nightfall on a bright day. To gladden troubled hearts, he emitted the six-colored rays. Seeing him thus, even sworn enemies laid down their arms. Then the Blessed Eagle alighted and seated himself on a magnificent Buddha throne. Then the bird Kunala narrated what he had seen in his former births to the royal cuckoo Punnamukha, who had just got up from his sickbed: I saw Kanha of double parentage wed five princes, insatiate she lusted for yet more, and with a hump-backed dwarf she played the whore.67 I have seen, friend Punnamukha, a female ascetic named Saccatapavi, who dwelt in a cemetery and gave away even a fourth meal. She sinned with a goldsmith. I witnessed too, friend Punnamukha, the case of Kakati, the wife of Venateyya, who dwelt surrounded by the sea and yet sinned with Naṭakuvera. I have seen, friend Punnamukha, the fair-haired Kurangavi, who though in love with Eḷakamara sinned with Chaḷangakumara and Dhanantevasi. This too was known to me, how the mother of Brahmadatta, forsaking the king of Kosala, sinned with Pancalacanda. These and other women went wrong, hence one should not trust or praise women. As the earth is impartial towards all, bearing wealth for all, a home for men good and bad alike, all-enduring, unshaken, immovable, so also is it with women (in a bad sense). A man should not trust them. Verily on nine grounds a woman incurs blame: if she is fond of frequenting parks, gardens, and river banks, fond of visiting the houses of kinsfolk or strangers, given to dress and adorn herself like a man, given to idle gaze, drinks intoxicants and stands before her door — I say, such a woman will surely stray from virtue and will be corrupted (1905:232). Verily, friend Punnamukha, death is predictable owing to the regressive charms of the female wench walking the streets as harlots. Instead to overcome societal constraints primitive sexuality portrayed by Eagle and Kakati is enigmatic. Jatakam rebirth tales show a flippant attitude toward long-held social conventions. The Eagle falls for the charms of Kakati in a pleasure garden; in Sussondi-Jataka the consort of the King of Benares goes to the dice-house to gaze at the handsome Eagle. On the whole, sexual power and eroticism in early Buddhist cult were a formidable force to transcend human limitations. Yet, due to the inherent struggle with morality, seductive female relentlessly lighting the darkness 66 Pandara-Jataka, J.518. Kunala Jataka, J.536, Vol. V, (tr.) H.T. Francis and R.A. Neil, 1905, p.225, ‘pp.219-245’ Sacred Texts (sacredtexts.com) Amazingly, Kunala-Jataka in early Sri Lankan Pali is brief episode of the Panch Pandavas with their names intact. They have a great run in Mahabharata, the great epic in Sanskrit literature. 67 of being is a largely ignored part of early Buddhist art. The Greco-Buddhist “Otherwise Worlds” turning on the wheel of cult rituals is performed by “courtesan dancers” fabricating “priestess nuns” — it is demonstrated by glorified females embodying sexually powerful religious experience in stupa sculpture. The curiosity of which pursued to center conceptual Trop of Desire historically; it includes the Homoerotic Love and cross-dressing Bodhisattvas, and the Symposium Rhetoric in schist shields put out as offering plates. What is above, so is below. In whatever form, they are willing recruits to gladden a man’s heart on the other side of River Styx. The recruitment of thousands of willing women was an essential part of the Buddhist mortuary cult. Reimagining religious belief through the socially engaged art, anything goes to get to the other side with one’s halo intact. A Silkroad Guide to Moksha Aquila in Latin is the eagle allied to valor and vitality on the standard of a Roman legion. A legionary as an aquilifer or the “eagle-bearer” carried the front-facing eagle standard. The eagle representing the sun god carved in chlorite schist and engraved in bronze is a chosen emblem of resurrection is profuse in Jiroft and other burial mounds across the desert in Iran. The eagle cast in gold and carved in stone are also found in Sarmatian, Scythian Kurgans in Central Asia, and Gonur Tepe (BMAC) in Turkmenistan that was once part of Russia. Fragment of an eagle from Afghanistan represents its shy presence in several sculptured reliefs in Gandhara (0.64). The Double-Headed Eagle Stupa famed in Taxila is a singular monument with obvious ties with Anatolia. The ancient Kulakl, the double-headed eagle turned east and west signifies the perpetual sun god (0.65). From Mongolia to Myanmar and beyond, the heroic Garuda the eagle signifies courage; Garuda in Vedic literature appears as a metaphor for Rik (rhythm), Saman (sound), Yajna (sacrifice), and Atman or the living soul. Bhaga in Sanskrit is a term for lord, benefactor, but also means wealth, prosperity. Finally, Bhaga signifies Helios the sun god.68 Helios riding a chariot shooting arrows is a memorable frieze on a pillar monument in Bodh Gaya. The map-dot location of the art-works leading to Moksha might be in Kushan South Asia, but the stimuli to the workshops come from diverse directions. One such is the monumental Heliodorus Pillar at Besnagar in Central India (Madhya Pradesh). It represents not just elevated spiritual awareness of their coded system, but the expertise and organizational prowess of the peers in the board of directors. The Heliodorus pillar presumed to be erected around 113 BCE was discovered by Alexander Cunningham in 1877. It is both unique and familiar. The Heliodorus Pillar known as Garuda Stambam and worshiped now as Khmba Baba (Pillar Lord/Pita) by the local fishermen is cognate with Latin Pater associated with the Trajan Column in Rome. The Besangar Heliodorus Pillar is about 7 km from Vidisha where a memorial pillar near the Great Stupa at Sanchi elevated the statue on the vedika of a lotus capital; the deified man was garbed in an ethnic dhoti.69The Besnagar Pillar is unusual, granting it recalls the prevalent inverted lotus 68 Bhaga is Lord in RV 1.123. Dawn (Ushas) is said to be Bhaga's sister, and Bhaga's eye is adorned with rays in RV 1.136. 69 Arputharani Sengupta, Buddhist Art and Culture: Symbols & Significance (New Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, Vol. I, 2013) p.19-20, fig.1.22a. ‘2 vols.’ capital, the graded bevelling of the shaft differs from the early tapered cylindrical “Asoka” pillars with a smooth shiny surface (0.66a). The inscription and a broken peg at the top of the lotus capital suggest that the animal emblem at the top might be an eagle signifying resurrection. The legend Garuda and Heliodorus Bagha, an Old Iranian term for “god” sometimes designating a specific god, portents Vishnu as a Great God (Bhagabhada). The epithet Bagha, Bhagavata, Bhagavan, Deva, Aya, and Arhat developed in the Kushan period. 0.64 Garuda / Aquila emblem of Rome, Stone fragment, Afghanistan, 1st century CE 0.65 Kulakl double-headed eagle, Turkey 0.66a,b Heliodorus Pillar / Garuda Stambam / Kamba Baba, Sandstone, Besnagar, India, 1st century CE 0.67 The Double-Headed Eagle Stupa Plinth, Taxila, Pakistan, 1st century CE 0.68 Floral Swags and Arched Aedicule, Schist, Gandhara, 1st century CE Midway, each octagonal facet of the beveled quartzite shaft of the Heliodorus Pillar has an arched aedicule with a lotus bloom and a lotus bud in the spandrel. Below this band, two historical inscriptions in Prakrit Brahmi are engraved across the three beveled sides of the octagonal shaft facing east and west. On the west side is the dedication to Devadeva Heliodorus riding an eagle (Garuda), the Divine Lord (Bhagavan/Bhagavata), son of Dion of Taxila sent by the great Greek King (Yona Maharaja) Antialcidas (Amtalikitasa) as ambassador and savior to Kasiputra (son of Benares) Bhagabhadra, in the fourteenth year of his reign.” The inscription on the east face of the pillar similar to “Asoka Edicts” and the religious faith in early Christianity, Mithraism, and Orphism proclaims the prevailing faith in heaven as a reward for righteous conduct: “Three immortal precepts (footsteps) when practiced lead to heaven: self-restraint, charity, awareness.” [Devadevasa Va [sude]vasa Garudadhvajo ayam karito i[a] Heliodorena bhagavatena Diyasa putrena Takhasilakena Yonadatena agatena maharajasa Amtalikitasa upa[m]ta samkasam-rano Kasiput[r]asa [Bh]agabhadrasa tratarasa vasena [chatu]dasena rajena vadhamanasa Trini amutapadani [su] anuthitani nayamti svaga damo chago apramado]70 The pillar memorial to Heliodorus festooned with twisted strands of floral swags with a bunch of lotus and fruit pendants emulate Roman Garland Sarcophagi. Apple, pear, and mango hang from the eight birds turning clockwise on the swing from eight to sixteen sides of the tapered shaft. The recall of the Golden Apples of Hesperides in the last but one feat of Hercules before capturing the multiheaded Cerberus in the underworld. The flying geese, floral swag, and the fruit of the Tree of Life signify Victory over Death. The section above the octagonal shaft faceted into sixteen sides taper into finely faceted thirty-two sides diminishing to an arrow point beneath the capital. The downturned lotus capital less than 91.5cm in diameter, and together with the abacus is about 76cm in height. The lotus capital rests on batten molding and the abacus separated by a twisted cable has bead and reel molding. The abacus below the rosettes on arcade lifting the Garuda emblem designate “prince” by the hieroglyphic geese enface alternate with acanthus of rebirth (0.66b). The missing eagle emblem balancing the pillar monument relates to the Imperial cult of Rome contending with the earliest Falcon sun god of Egypt. The scaffolding of meaning is incorrigible in early Buddhist art. The Nile giving rebirth to Antinous apparent in the new cult of “self-sacrificing” Bodhisattva comes on the heel of Homeric Greek god Helios and Ganymede as Aetos Dios, a golden eagle that served as Zeus’ beloved companion are as much mythology as it is art, maybe even more so. In Greek tradition, When you (Zeus) were an eagle when you picked up the boy (Ganymede) on the slopes of Teukrian Ida with the greedy gentle claw, and brought him to heaven. – Nonnus, Dionysiaca 10. 308 ff The Heliodorus pillar datable to 1st century CE has the earliest reference to Garuda. A. L. Basham thought that Heliodorus was a Greek converted to Bhagavata religion of Lord Krishna, the divine transport of Vishnu gaining the status of the Imperial cult under the Guptas.71The imperial Heliodorus pillar corresponds to an inscribed column in Roman North Africa found 75 km southwest of Avitina by the River Bagrada.72 The pillar measuring 80 cm high was one of four dedicated to Tiberius Caesar Augustus by C. Septumius c.f. Saturninus, flamen. According to Tiberius’ title, the date of dedication was 33 CE. Other than Lepcis Magna, evidence of priest of Imperial cult in Avitana, then a part of Carthage probably went under Numidian control. The “Bhagavata Heliodorus” pillar linked to Alexandria and Ptolemaic Numidia/Mauretania, originated as an imperial monument in the Roman Empire. The inscription derived from the Imperial cult of Egypt that personified the king as Horus the sun god in the form of a falcon. The 70 71 Archaeological Survey of India, Annual Report (1908-1909) A. L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India (Oxford, Taplinger Pub. Co., 1967)p.60. (3rd ed.) J. B. Rives, Imperial Cult and Native Tradition in Roman North Africa (The Classical Journal, Vol. 96, No. 4, Apr.May, 2001) pp. 425-436 (JSTOR/3298422) 72 falcon merged with the eagle of Jupiter appears first as Garuda Bodhisattva consorting with the spellbound Nagin in South Asia. The sun represented by the eagle is the life force in the universe. The Garuda Pillar Monument at Besnagar and the Double-Headed Eagle Stupa at Taxila are the first monumental “Disruptors” that daringly diverge and yet remain within the mainstream Buddhist iconography. The royal double-headed eagle called Kulakl in Turkey in a sublime cocktail of myth and occultism shield the Czars of eastern monarchies as far as Russia (0.67). The eagle looking east and west on the arched gateway, aedicule, and pedimented tombs, herald the sun’s eternal passage to transcend human limitations. The stupa frieze with floral swags alongside arched aedicules is typically carved on Roman sarcophagi (0.68). 0.69a Cleopatra and Mark Antony’s twins Selene and Alexander Helios, Limestone, Egypt, b.40 BCE 0.69b Helios and Selene Obol, Anguiped Agathamenon (ob.), Telephos’ Indo-Greek Coin, 1st century CE 0.70 Kanishka’s bronze relic casket, Shah-ji-ki Dheri Tila, Peshawar Museum, Pakistan, 1st century CE Replica of Kanishka casket in the British Museum (BM1880.270) Discovered in 1909 0.71 The Four Seasons Ploughman, Pedestal of Bodhisattva, Schist, Gandhara, 2nd century CE There are more patterns to pairing than one may realize. The Alexandrian memorial is dedicated to a herald of royal descendent named Heliodorus. Therein lies the connection to Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) worshiped as Amun-Zeus across his vast Eurasian empire. The last Macedonian successor to Alexander is Cleopatra immortalized with Marc Antony. But their twin offsprings Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene born in the autumn of 40 BCE have been all but forgotten. Cleopatra Selene II and Alexander Helios as infant serpent deities in an Egyptian limestone sculpture anticipate Naga and Nagin iconography in early Buddhist sculpture (0.69a). The twined celestial names of Helios (Sun) and Selene (Moon) spread their prophetic destiny to govern a Golden Age across the Roman Empire. They seem to have fulfilled the great things predicted about them. The libation plates of Gandhara show a type of aquatic anguiped promise safe passage to the soul. A sandstone stele in Mathura Museum (42.2944) depicts a male anguiped with a human torso and two serpentine extremities with a serpent head. A railing of Sanchi Stupa 2 depicts female anguiped with twisted serpent legs that terminate in a lotus blossom. An identical anguiped on the Indo-Greek coin of Telephos is an agathodaemon or a good spirit (Gk. daemon) of the vineyards and grainfields in ancient Greek religion. The spirit of prosperity backs Helios and Selene twins on reverse inscribed in Kharoshti typical of Gandhara (0.69b). The numismatics of Juba I (r. 60–46 BCE) of Punic-Carthegnian Numidia is prototypical of Greek and Phoenecian derived script on the bilingual Indo-Greek coins. Numidia’s Phoenecian fleet under Juba II (d. 23 CE) and his son Ptolemy of Mauretania (d.40 CE) filled the coffers of the Kushan kingdom allied to the Greco-Roman culture of North Africa. Though unmarked by history, it was natural for Cleopatra's son Alexander Helios to claim Parthia as his birthright and introduce in the Kushan Kingdom the earliest reliquary stupa monuments derived from the hemispherical mausoleum of Cleopatra Selene II and Juba II in Mauretania, now Algeria. It is inconclusive if Alexander Helios is commemorated by the Heliodorus Pillar. But it certainly preludes the monolithic pillar monuments in South Asia. The swags and flying geese encircling its shaft heralds the bronze reliquary casket of Kushan king Kanishka (c.78-115CE) in the Peshawar Museum discovered in 1909 at Shah-ji-ki Dheri Tila (0.70). While the bronze Kanishka reliquary stems from the Hellenistic pyxis, the swags herald the Asiatic Garland Sarcophagi. Cleopatra Selene was the queen of Mauretania, the North African kingdom of Juba II, which produced the purple die harvested from a certain shellfish, being important for dyeing Chinese silk on the Syrian coast before being exported to Rome as the purple stripe on the senatorial robes. Other commodities of Mauretania include grapes, figs, pearls, and lathe-turned wooden furniture displayed in Buddhist sculpture. Juba's coins partial to the Roman type bust display lion, elephant, and other themes such as the club of Hercules on the reverse. Astrological themes too are presented, such as the crescent moon, star, and Capricorn, a sign of Janus favored by Octavian Augustus adopted as Makara in Buddhist art. Dolphin like Makara linked to Venus/Yakshi perhaps refers to the conquest of terrestrial and celestial realms. Cornucopia signifying Demeter/Hariti referring to the endless bounty in the hereafter is the chief evidence of transcultural influences in the germination of Indian civilization. Mahakala represented by the elephant and Harpa is Saturn, the King of Kings together with Demeter responsible for an agricultural prosperity. Saturn as the plowman on a pedestal equivalent to the Four Seasons Roman sarcophagus promises eternal life to the Bodhisattva (0.71). Water tanks and agricultural fields adjacent to stupa and temple sites encourage the magic of the endless life seized at first by the Egyptian tomb paintings and the Book of Dead. A satyr with the body of a horse carrying female appears in Sanchi stupa reliefs. Bacchus was often accompanied by sexually aroused Silenus, Satyrs, half-goat men with horns and erection, and female Maenads called Bacchae, typically portrayed in a drunken dance. A male satyr is also known as a Silenos, Faun, and Pan. Romans sacrificed in his honor. From the moment of its sighting, the wide-ranging obligations of a lost civilization make it doubly difficult to construe correctly. We may comment on this peculiar and newly borrowed tradition only by comparing Buddhist syncretism with visible spectacle in the contemporary Roman world. That ought to easily take care of the outer form but the fundamental part is the mysterious intent aimed to achieve eternal life equated to immense light called Enlightenment encoded in the name Amitabha meaning “Immeasurable Radiance” and “Endless Life”. The energized body progress through various melodramatic stages to attain its final goal. The onslaught of Mara or death and the extinction of life is Nirvana, literally “fading out” in the dramatic Cycle of Life of a Buddha. In simple terms, this inevitable episode of Mara is a fitting melodramatic description of human “tragedy”.The Great Departure describes the finality of death following the onslaught of Mara. The equestrian rivaling the royal Roman cavalryman or the caparisoned riderless horse lifted to heaven is at the vortex of storm stirred up by Alexander the Great and his Greek successors. On the whole, there is a need for a cognizant framework for a wider comparative study of Greco-Buddhist art, inclusive of its symbolic function. Often an important transformative moment in history is ushered by a noteworthy iconography. Such is the image of “Bharat Mata” declaring the independence of India, which was first signaled by Roma extolled on the gold coin of the Kushan king Huvishka (126-164 CE). This phenomenon can be seen in the borrowings from Greek mythology, strikingly in the expansive and expensive interpretation of Ganymede and Zeus by the Kushan-Sasanian kings. It was first highlighted on a painted glass beaker in the Begram hoard. The subsequent picturesque and allegoric group sculpture depicting the Eagleman embracing the Queen of Heaven adopt enactments by the courtesan dancer who must dance herself into a vortex for spring to begin. Merged with the Eagle consort the otherworldly couple creates breathtaking dream sequences that invite the viewer to consider alternate realities. where a maiden Nagin. The creator of the Buddhist dance-theatre belonged to a secret society. Each choreographed version moving through primal rituals move toward a climax in Sri Lanka. Displaying the vestige of the past, her body whirling on a pivot like a top, the dancing couple gives a visceral performance of a predestined union. Literature is obtuse, and there is much more than what meets the eye. Buddhist performances are frozen in sculptured relief restage a lost tradition in Greco-Roman and Egyptian religious plays. In their outwards aspect the essence of the tableaux is the sensational pose. It is dictated by the line of the body attuned to dance and melodrama. Yet, despite repeated display, the crux of its inmost esoteric meaning is unobtainable any more than finding its origins. Conclusion During the re-thinking and re-situating of early Buddhist art and culture, I woke one Sunday morning to the irreverent patter of Sankarshan Thakur in “Lazy Eye” (The Telegraph, 02 August 2020). Who gets to decide which is which? Take your pick. And tell me when you’re ready. Even if it is too late to tell me. Do tell me, I shall have my ears flapping for what was right and what was wrong, and how you came to arrive at what was right and what was wrong, what you said yes to, what you said no to. I should wish upon you the benediction of being able to judge this from that, right from wrong, the right Yes from the wrong Yes, the wrong No from the right No.